^K':-^ 



m 



LIBKAUr OF COKGUESS. | 

CHIjap. *p ' ^ q I 




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LA. 



POEMS 



B Y 



ERASTUS W^ ELLSWORTH 





HARTFORD: 
F. A. B R O AV N 



M . D C C C . L V , 



-pcj ,£•<! 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by 

E. W. ELLSWORTH, 
in'the Clerlv's Office of the Dis-trict Court of Connecticut. 



PRINTED BY CASE, TIFFANY AND COMPANY. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

The Chimes, 13 

Ariadne, 18 

Eeady for the Chase, 58 

Putnam's Awakening, 61 

Charter Oak, . . ... . . . 71 

The Seasons, 73 

Lines written in "Pilgrim's Progress," . . 80 

Crazy Kate, 83 

St. Valentine, . . ... . . . 87 

Esther's Feast, 90 

Mount Vernon, . .... . . . 93 

The Yankee, . . . 104 

The Mayflower, Ill 

TULOOM, 115 



yJII CONTENTS. ^ 

PAGE 

EXCEKPTS FKOM AN EPISTLE TO A FrIEND, . 122 

A Railroad Lyric, 132 

Mary Queen of Scots' Farewell to France, . 144 

A LooK-OuT, 146 

To Kate 150 

Shakespeare, 152 

Burns, 154 

March Birds, 160 

A Ballad of Nathan Hale, 162 

Song, 189 

The Talisman, 190 

Cupid and the Wasp, 192 

The Cock of the Walk, 200 

Brevities. 

L, 204 

II., 206 

III., 207 

IV., 208 

v., 209 

VI., 210 

VII., 211 

VIII., 212 

Socrates to his Friends, 213 

A Domestic Lyric, 217 

The Violet, ; ... 222 

What is the UseV 225 

A Millennial Psalm, 238 



CONTENTS. 



APPENDIX. 



Enigmatic Poems 



IX 



PAGE 

249 
253 
256- 



I. The Barbarous Fate of De Courcy, 
II. The Strasburg Spire, 

III. Friar Bacon anticipated, .... 

IV. The Metamorphosis, 262 

V. Alexander's Vision, 267 

Solution of Enigmatic Poems, 273 



'■Borneo. — What, sluiU this speech be spoke for our excuse? 

Or shall we on, Avithout apology? 

Benvolio. — The date is out of such prolixity." 

Romeo and Juliet. 



THE CHIMES. 

It was evening in New England, 
And the air was all in tune, 

As I sat at an open window, 
In the emerald month of June. 

From the maples by the roadway 
The robins sang in pairs. 

Listening, and then responding, 
Each to the other's airs. 
2 



14 



POEMS. 



Sounds of calm that wrought the feeling, 

Of the murmur of a shell — 
Of the drip of a lifted bucket, 

In a wide and quiet well. 

And I thought of the airs of bargemen, 

Who tunefully recline, 
As they float by Ehrenbreitstein, 

In the twilight of the Khine. 

And then of an eve in Venice, 
And the song of the gondolier, 

From the far lagunes replying 
To the winged lion pier. 



And then of the verse of Milton, 
And the music heard to rise 

Through the solemn night, from angels 
Stationed in Paradise. 



THE CHIMES. ;|^5 



Thus, I said, it is with music; 

Wheresoe'er at random thrown, 
Tt will seek its own responses. 

It is loth to die alone. 



Thus, I said, the Poet's music, 
Though a lonely native air. 

May appeal unto a rhythm 
That is native everywhere. 

For, although, in scope of feeling. 
Human hearts are far apart. 

In the depths of every bosom 
Beats the universal heart — 



Beats with wdde accordant motion, 
And the chimes amid the towers 

Of the grandest of God's temples 
Seem as if they might be ours. 



16 



POEMS. 

And we grow in such a, seeming. 
Till, indeed, we may control 

To an echo, our communion 

With the good and grand in soul. 

As an echo in a valley 

May revive a cadence there. 

Of a bell that may be swaying 
In a lofty Alpine air — 

As a screen of tremulous metal, 
From the rolling organ tone. 

Rings out to a note of the music 
That can never be its own — 



As an earnest artist ponders 

On a study nobly wrought, 
Till his fingers gild his canvas - 

With a touch of the self-same thought. 



THE CHIMES. 



17 



But the sun had now descended 

Far along his cloudy stairs, 
And the night had come like the angels 

To Abraham, unawares. 



2* 



ARIADNE. 

[Scene, part of the island of Naxos. Snndiy Dryads, hab- 
ited as fair yonng girls, bearing- branches and flowers, advance.] 

1st Dryad. 

We shadowy Ocean ides, 
Jove's warders of the island trees — 
The tufted pillars tall and stout, 
And all the bosky camp about. 
Maintain our lives in sounding shades 
Of old Eolian colonnades; 
But post about the neighbor land, 
In woof of insubstantial wear. 



ARIADNE. 2^9 

Our ways are on the water-sand, 

Our joy is in the desert air. 

The very best of our delights, 

Are by the moon of summer nights. 

Darkness to us is holiday, 

When winds and waves are up at play ; 

When, on the thunder-beaten shore 

The swinging breakers split and roar. 

Then is the moment of our glory. 

In shadow of a promontory, 

To trip and skip it to and fro. 

Even as the flashing bubbles go. 

Or, on the bleaker banks that lie. 

For the salt-seething wash, too high. 

Where rushes grow so sparse and green, 

With baked and barren floors between. 

We glance about in mazy quire. 

With much of coming and retire; 

Nor let the limber measure fail 

Till, down behind the ocean bed, 

The night-dividing star is sped. 



20 



POEMS. 



And Cynthia stoops the marish vale, 
Wound in clouds and vigil pale; 
Trailing the curtains of the west 
About her ample couch of rest. 

Thus, nightly on, we lead the year 
Through all the constellated sphere. 
But more obscure, in brakes and bowers, 
During the sun-appointed hours. 
We lodge, and are at rest, and see 
Dimly the day's festivity — 
Nor hail the spangled jewel set 
Upon Aurora's coronet; 
Nor roam the park, nor tramp the pool 
Of lucid waters pebble-cool; 
Nor trail in any morning dew. 
Nor heed the satyr's far halloo. 
Noon and the glowing hours seem 
Mutations of a laboring dream. 

Yet, subject held to Jove's decree, 
We do a task of destiny: 
When any mortal, sorely spent, 



ARIADNE. 21 

Girt with the thorns of discontent, 
Or care, or hapless love, invades 
This neighborhood of ancient shades, 
Our gracious leave is to dispense, 
Of woods, the slumberous influence. 
The waverings and the murmurings 
Of umber shades and leafy wings ; 
Through all the courts of sense applying, 
With sights and sounds and odorous sighing, 
To the world-wearied soul of man, 
The gentle universal Pan — 
As now we must : 

The roots around, 
Of forest, clutch a certain sound 
Of weary feet. Go, sisters, out. 
Some one is pining hereabout. 



POEMS. 



[Scene, el.sewlicre on the island. Enter Ariadne.] 

Ariadne. 

Here, in the heart of this sea-moated isle, 
Where we but last night made a summer's 

lodge 
Of transient rest from many pendulous days 
Of swinging on the sick, unquiet deep, 
Why left he me so lone, so unattended ? 
What converse had he with felonious Night, 
That underneath her dark-consenting cloak 
He stole unchallenged from his Ariadne? 
If, out of hope, I can not answer that, 
Slant-eyed Conjecture at my elbow stands. 
To whisper me of things I would not hear. 

Ah me, my Theseus, wherefore art thou 
gone ? 

Ah me, my Theseus, whither art thou 
gone? 
O how shall I, an ujiacquainted maid. 



AMADNE. 



23 



So uninformed of whereabouts I am, 
And in a wild completely solitary, 
Hope to find out my strangely absent lord? 
Sadness there is, and an unquiet fear 
Within my heart, to trace these hereabouts. 
Of idle woods, unthreaded labyrinths, 
Rude-mannered brooks, unpastured meadow 

sides, 
All vagrant, voiceless, pathless, echoless. 
O for the farthest breath of mortal sound. 
From lacqueyed hall, or folded peasant hut — 
Some noontide echo sweetly voluble — 
Some song of toil reclining from the heat. 
Or low of kine, or neigh of tethered steeds, 
Or honest clamor of some shepherd dog — 
Laughter, or cries, or any living breath. 
To make inroad upon this dreariness! 
Methinks no shape of savage insolence, 
No den unblest, no hour inopportune. 
Could daunt me now, nor warn my weary 

feet 



24 



POEMS. 



From friendly parle, that am distract of heart, 
With doubt, desertion, utter loneliness. 
Death would I seek, to run from lonely fear, 
And deem a hut a heaven, with company. 
Yea, now to question of my true heart's lord. 
And of the ports and alleys of this isle. 
Which way they lead the clueless wanderer 
To fields suburban and the towers of men, 
I would confront the strangest things that 

haunt 
In horrid shades of brooding desolation — 
Griffin or satyr, sphinx, or sybil ape. 
Or lop-eared demon from the dens of night, 
Let loose to caper out of Acheron. 

Ah me, my Theseus, wherefore art thou 
gone ? 
Who left that crock of water at my side ? 
Who stole my dog, that loved no one but me? 
Why was the tent unstruck, I un awaked, 
I left, most loved, and last to be forgotten. 
By much obtaining, much indebted Theseus? 



ARIADNE. 



25 



Left to sleep on, to dream and slumber on. 
Nothing to know save fancies of the air, 
While he, so strangely covert in his thoughts. 
All in the night, all in the quiet night. 
Was softly stirring to be gone from me. 
Ah me, my Theseus, whither art thou gone ? 
Hast thou, in pleasant sport, deserted me ? 
Is it a whim, a jest, a trick of task, 
To mesh me in another labyrinth? 
Could Theseus so make mirth of Ariadne? 
Unless he did, I would not think he could; 
And yet I will believe he is in jest. 
More false than that he could not be to me. 
Since false to me, to his own self were false. 
Now do I hold for truth, what I have heard, 
That Love will, sometimes, cunning masks 

put on. 
Speak with strange tongues, and wear odd 

liveries, 
Transform himself to seemings most unlike, 
3 



26 POEMS. 

And still be Love, in fearful opposites. 
Ofttimes are coldness, absence, jealousy, 
Mere harsh ostents of too engrossing Love. 
So may it be. But my immediate fear 
Jostles my hope aside, and I remember 
Of what my tutor Etion did forewarn me. 
(O fond old man! if thou didst know me here 
Thou wouldst move heaven and earth to 

have me home.) 
Much was his care of my uncaring youth ; 
And, with a reverend and considerate wit, 
He curbed the frolic of my pupilage, 
Less by the bridle, than by feeding it 
With stories ending in moralities, 
With applications and similitudes 
Tacked to the merest leaf I looked upon, 
Till, so it was, we two did love each other, 
The child and sage, with mutual amity. 
Oft, hand in hand, we passed my father's 

gate, 
At evening, when the horizontal day 



ARIADNE. 27 

Checkered his farewell on the western wall ; 
Shying the court, where, for the frolic lords, 
Under the profaned silence of the rose. 
The syrinx and the stringed sonorous shell 
Governed the twinkling-heeled Terpsichore. 
We softly went, down many a devious way, 
And found another world, contemplative 
Of shells and pebbles by the ocean shore. 
I do remember once, on such an eve. 
Pacing the polished margin of the deep, 
We found two weeds that had embraced 

each other, 
And talked of friendship, love, and sympathy. 
"My pupil sweet," said he, "beware of 

Love. 
For thou wilt shortly be besieged by him 
From the four winds of heaven, because 

thou art 
Daughter of Minos, and already married 
To expectation of a royal dower. 
But beware, for listen what I say : 



2g POEMS. 

By strong presentments I have moved thy 

father, 
(Bating a fak and well intending nay,) 
To leave thy love to thine unmuffled eye. 
This is rare scope, my girl, O use it rarely; 
Be slow and nice in thy sweet liberty, 
And let discretion honor thee in choice. 
For love is like a cup with dregs at bottom — 
Hand it with care, and pleasant it shall be ; 
Snatch it, and thou mayst find it bitterness." 

And now, my soon, my all sufficient lord, 
Did not old Etion speak an oracle ? 
Too true it is that I have snatched my love, 
And taste already of its bitterness. 

But trifle not with love, my sportful 
Theseus. 
Affection, when it bears an outward eye. 
Be it of love, or social amity, 
Or open-lidded general charity. 
Becomes a holy universal thing — 
The beauty of the soul, which, therein lodged, 



ARIADNE. 



29 



Surpasses every outward comeliness — 
Makes fanes of shaggy shapes, and, of the 

fair. 
Such presences as fill the gates of Heaven. 
Why is the dog, that knows no stint of heart, 
But roars a welcome like a lion's whelp, 
And leaps a dirty-footed, fierce caress, 
^Nlore valued than the sleek, smooth-man- 
nered cat. 
That will not out of doors, whoever comes. 
But hugs the fire, in graceful idleness? 
Birds of a glittering gilt, that lack a tongue, 
Are shamed to drooping with the euphony 
Of fond expression, and the voice beneath 
The russet jacket of the soul of song. 
What is that girdle of the Queen of Love 
Wherewith, as with the shell of Orpheus, 
Things high and humble — the exalted gods, 
And tenants of the far unvisited huts 
Of wildernesses, she alike subdues 
3* 



gQ POEMS. 

Unto the awe of perfect harmony ? 

What else but sweetness tempered all one 

way, 
And looks of sociable benignity? — 
Which when she chooseth to be all herself, 
She doth put on, and in the act thereof, 
Such thousand graces lacquey her about, 
And in her smile such plentitude of joy. 
The extreme perfection of the divine gods, 
Shines affable, as, to partake thereof. 
Hath oftentimes set Heaven in uproar. 

By these, and many special instances, 
It doth appear, or may be plainly shown, 
That of all life affection is the savor — 
The soul of it — and beauty is but dross. 
Being but the outer iris-film of love — 
The flitting shade of an eternal thing — 
Beauty- — the cloudy mock of Tantalus — 
Daughter of Time betrothed unto Death, 
Who, all so soon as the lank Anarch old 
Fingers her palm and lips her for his bride, 



ARIADNE. 



31 



Suffers collapse, and straightway doth be- 
come 
A hideous comment of mortality. 

Know this, my lord, while thou dost run 
from me: 
The tide of true love hath its hours of ebb, 
If the attendant orb withdraw its light. 
And whether 'tis that I am royal born, 
And kingly blooded, or that once I was 
Sometimes a mistress in my father's court, 
I have, of patience, much — not overmuch — 
And thou hadst best beware the boundary. 

O thou too cruel and injurious thorn, 
What hast thou done to my poor innocent 

hand I 
Thou art like Theseus, thou dost make me 

bleed ; 
Offenceless I, but thou dost make me bleed. 
This scratch I shall remember well, my lord I 
Deceiver false, deserter, runaway. 
My quick-heeled slave, my loose ungrateful 
bird. 



22 POEMS. 

Where'er thou art, or if thou hear or no, 

Know that thou art, from this time, given o'er. 

To tarry and return what time thou wilt. 

It is most like that thou dost lurk not far, 

In twilight of some envious cave or bower. 

Well, if thou dost — why — lurk thy heart's 
content. 

Poor rogue I thou art not worth this weari- 
ness. 
' I will not flutter more, nor cry to thee. 

Since thon art fledged, and toppled from the 
nest, 

Go — pick thy crumbs where thou canst find 
them best. 

Once more, once more, O yet again once 
more 
Spent is my breath with fear and weariness. 
Vain toil it is to trace this tangled wild, 
This rank, o'ergrown, imprisoned solitude. 



ARIADNE. 33 

Whose very flowers are fetters in my way; 
Where I am chained about with vines and 

briars, 
Led blindfold on through mazes tenantless, 
And not a friendly echo answers me. 
O for a foot as airy as the wing 
Of the young brooding dove, to overpass, 
On swift commission of my true heart's love. 
All metes and bournes of this lone wilderness. 
So should I quickly find my truant lord. 
But as it is I can no farther go ; 
My spirits in their sad recoiling drowse, 
And faintly lapse towards forgetfulness. 
What shall I do ? — despair? — lie down and 

die? 
If I give o'er my search I shall despair, 
And if I do despair, I quickly die. 
Avaunt Despair! I will not yet despair. 
Begone, grim herald of oblivious death! 
Strong-pinioned Hope, embrace thy wings 

about me! 



34 



POEMS. 

Shake not my fingers from thy golden chain! 

O still bear up and pity Ariadne! 

Alas ! what hope have I but Theseus ? — 

And Theseus is not here to pity me. 

Ah me, my Theseus, whither art thou gone? 

Thou dost forget that thou hast called me 

wife, 
And with sweet influence of hallowed vows 
Grappled and grafted me unto thyself. 
O how shall I, not knowing where thou art, 
Be all myself? — thou dost dissever me! 
Yonder I'll rest awhile, for now I see. 
Through meshes of the internetted leaves, 
A little plot, girt with a living wall, 
A sylvan chamber that the frolic Pan 
Has built, and bosomed with a leafy dome. 
And windowed with a narrow glimpse of 

heaven. 
Its floor, sky-litten by the noontide sun. 
Shows garniture of many-colored flowers 



ARIADNE. 35 

More dainty than the broidered webs of Tyre ; 
And all about, from beeches, oaks and pines, 
Kecesses deep, of vernal solitude, 
Come sounds of calm that woo my ruffled 

spirits 
To a resigned and quiet contemplation. 
Yon brook, that like a child runs wide astray, 
Sings and skips on, nor knows its loneliness. 
A squirrel chatters at a doorless nut, 
A hammer-bird drums on his hollow bark, 
And bits of winged life with airy voices 
Tinkle like fountains in a corridor. 
Fair haunt of peace, ye quiet cadences, 
Ye leafy caves of sadness and sweet sounds 
That have no feeling nor no fellowship 
With the rash moods of terror and of pain, 
I did not think ye could in such an hour 
So steal from me, as in a sleep, a dream — 
What is't that comes between me and the 

light? 
Protect me Jove! Lo what untended flowers. 



;6 



POEMS. 



That all night long do weep themselves 

asleep, 
In th' orient morning lift their pretty eyes, 
Tear-smiling, to behold the sun, their sire. 
Enter the gilded chambers of the east — 
Strange droopingnessl — what quality of air? 

[Aiiadne drops asleep. Enter tlic Dryads as l)efore.] 

1st Duyad. 

Sprinkle, out of flower bells, 
Mortal-sense entrapping spells. 

Make no sound 

On the ground. 
Strew and lap and lay around. 

Gnat nor snail 

Here assail ; 
Beetle, slug, nor spider here 

Now descend 

Nor depend 
Off of any thorny spear. 



ARIADNK. 



2d Dryad. 



37 



So conclude. Whatever seems, 
We have her in a chain of dreams. 

3d Dryad. 

As fair as foreign I Who is here 

In disarray of royal gear ? 

Here were a lass whose queenly port 

Might make an awe in Heaven's court. 

But sorrowing beauty testifies, 

In tears that journey from her eyes, . 

To touches of interior pain. 

And on her hand a sanguine stain. 

Hair unlooped and sandals torn, 

Zone unloosed from its bourne. 

Surely some wandering bride of sorrow. 

1st Dryad. 

So let her sleep and bid good-morrow. 
4 



3g POEMS. 



4th Dryad. 



But, sisters, me it doth astound, 
What maid it is that we have bound, 
And Bacchus not, nor Ceres, found. 

2d Dryad. 

Bacchus has gone to Arcady, 

Where certain swains, that merry be. 

Have found a happy thunder-stone 

That Jove has cast, the vale upon ; 

So take occasion to be blest, 

And Bacchus was invited guest. 

His shaggy crew have helped the plan. 

Silenus made the pipes of Pan. 

The satyrs teazed the vines about, 

And Bacchus sent a lubber lout 

Who lurked and stole, ere wink of morn, 

The heedless Amalthea's horn. 

Now all are gone to Arcady, 

Head-bent on rousing jollity. 

Now riot-rule will be, anon. 



ARIADNE. 



39 



That shall the very sun aston, 
By waters whist, and on the leas, 
Under the great fantastic trees. 

The oldest swain, 

With longest cane, 
And sad experience in his brain, 
On such mad mirth shall fail to wink, 
And grimly go aside to think. 

•3d Dryad. 

But cedar-waving sister, say. 

What news has winged our queen away? 

2d Dryad. 

Ceres has gone to see the feast 
Made by the King of all the East, 
Who breasts a l^eard so black and fair, 
And breathes a wealth of gorgeous air. 
Married he is this happy night 
Unto a Queen of gay delight. 
Whose odorous train came up from far, 



40 



POEMS. 



Last night, at shut of evening star, 
And filled with pomp majestical 
The gardens and the palace hall. 
So Ceres runs to give them aid 
In likeness of an Indian maid. 
Presents them each a dove apiece, 
And wishes blessings and increase, 

1st Dryad. 

Hark I hark! I hear her rolling car. 
Our Queen is not so very far. 

4th Dryad. 

Now make your faces long. I ween, 
Here comes our sweet majestic Queen. 



[Enter Ceres, in likeness of a stately woman bearing- poppies 
and ears of wheat in her hands, and crowned with a garland of 
flowers and berries.] 



AKIAD.NE. 



Ceres. 



41 



What! looye and chatting here at play, 
All in the broad and staring day I 
Why children, this is something queer! 

3d Dkyad. 
But, mistress, see the sleeper here. 

Ceres. 



A fair excuse! I own the sight. 
Theseus deserted her last night. 



2d Dry ad. 
How knew you that, my lady dear? 

Ceres. 

Well sought — for I was far from here. 
Whiles o'er the crisp Ionian main 
I shook the winnowed dragon rein — 

4* 



42 POEMS, 

3d Dryad. 

Invented error! Sister! fie! 

Our Queen has trapped yoii in a lie. 



A lie! 



A lie? 



2d Dryad. 



Ceres. 



3d Dryad. 



Deceit forgets 
How Truth is always trailing nets. 
While you, sweet Empress, berry-crowned. 
Were on th' Ionian, westward bound, 
Our sister puffed you towards the east. 
With words about a marriage feast. 

Ceres. 

How thin a bubble blame may be ! 
I sought for doves in Italy ; 



ARIADNK. 

But orient was my main intent, 
And on an Indian nuptial bent. 

2d Dryad. 
Now honey-lips, the lie is where ? 

4th Dryad. 
She weeps. 

2d Dryad. 



Fool-fingered thing! 



Ceres. 

Forbear. 
Whiles, o'er the crisp Ionian main, 
I shook the winnowed dragon rein, 
A Triton clove the wake behind. 
And, with a hailing will, did wind 
Such parley through his crankled horn 
As all the air was echo torn. 



43 



44 



POEMS. 



I .stayed — he told what did betide 
Of truant Theseus and his bride; 
Which having heard I made repair 
Unto that subterranean lair 
Wherein the dreadful sisters three 
Vex out the threads of destiny. 
But they were sorely overtasked; 
So techy, too, that when I asked 
If he could not be plagued for this 
Unloving piece of business, 
With knots and burs upon his thread, 
They would not speak nor lift the head. 
Yet saw I how his flax did run 
Smoothly, and much is yet unspun. 

1st Dryad. 

Sweet Queen, adieu! Come, let's away. 
We keep no sunshine holiday. 

Ceres. 

Stay, children, stay. 

Poor thing I I do remember me 



ARIADNE. 45 

How I did seek Proserpine. 

We must not leave her thus forlorn. 

Auroral grace in her is born, 

And rarer else, the finest sense 

Of feeling and intelligence. 

Mortals of such ethereal grain 

Are quickened both for joy and pain; 

Theirs is the affluence of joy. 

And pain that sorely doth annoy ; 

And, therefore, if we leave her thus. 

To find the truth of Theseus, 

She will with such a madness burn. 

And do herself so sad a turn. 

As that the very thought, ere while. 

Will drive us all to quit the isle. 

4th Dryad. 
Alack! O no I What must be done? 

Ceres. 

Go you, and you, and every one. 
To stay such heart-distracting harm, 



46 



POEMS. 



Go, each bring flowers upon her arm: 
Phik, poppy, panzy, pimpernel!, • 

Acanthus, ahnond, asphodel. 

[The Dryads go to n little distaitce and gather floAvers, with 
Avhicli they return to Ceres.] 

Now all join hands. [They join hands.] 

Fair fall the eyes 
Of any weary destinies! 
I bruise the flowers, and so set free 
Their virtue for adversity. 
Then, with my unguent finger-tips. 
Touch twice and once on cheeks and lips. 
When this sweet influence comes to naught, 
Vexed she shall be, but not distraught. 
And now let music winnow thought. 
Bucolic sound of horn and flute. 
In distant echo nearly mute. 
Then, louder borne, and swellino^ near. 
Make bolder murmur in ber ear. 



ARIADNE. 



47 



1st Dryad. 
See, see what change is in her face! 

Ceres. 
Break hands, break hands, she wakes apace! 

[Ceres and the Drvads loose hands and disappear.] 

Ariadne. 

I dreamed a dream of sadness and the sea; 
And I will turn again if yet I may, 
To where the rolling rondm-e of the deep 
Broadly affronts the sky's infinity. 
Sleeping or waking, knew I naught but this : 
Sorrow and Love, above a desolate main, 
From the sheer battlements of opposite 

clouds. 
Kissed, and embraced, and parted company. 



48 



POEMS. 



[Scene, the sea-shore.] 

This is the self-same bay where we put in. 
Yonder the restless keel did gore the sand. 
There was the sailor's fire, and up and down 
Are scattered mangled ropes, splinters and 

spars, 
Fragments and shreds — but ship and all are 

gone. 

Here is my wreath. How brief since yester 

eve, — 
Then, when the sun, like an o'erthirsty god. 
Had stooped his brows behind the ocean 

brim, 
And the west wind, bearing his martial word, 
The limber-footed and the courier west, 
Went smoothly whist over the furrowed floor, 
To bid the night, then gazing up the sphere. 
Advance his constellated banners there, 
I leaned above the vessel's whispering prow, 



ARIADNE. 



49 



With an unusual joy, and drank from out 
The heaven of those true repeated depths 
Infinite calm, as though I did commune 
With the still spirit of the universe. 
So leaning, from my hair I then unwound 
This chain of flowers and dropped it in the 

sea, 
Blessing that twilight hour, the port, the bay. 
The deep dim isle of inter-lunar woods, 
My love, and all the world, and naming them 
Waters of rest — now lies my garland here. 

What words are these, thus furrowed on 
the shore ? 
These are the very turns of Theseus' hand. 
If ^ from thy hook the fish to water fall ^ 
Think not to catch that fish again at all. 

Too well my thought unlocks these cruel 
lines ! 
And is it from thy heart thou dost reject me ? 
Flatly and plainly — is it from thy heart? 
O drench of grief! I thank ye, piteous Powers, 
5 



50 



POEMS. 



Who sent not this without forewarning drops. 
O miserable me ! distressful me I 
Despised, disdained, deserted, desolate I 
O world of dew! O morning water drops! 
Lack-lustre, irksome, dull mortality! 
O now, O now that heaven all is black 
Wherein the rainbow of my joy did stand! 
O love! O life! O life entire in love! 
All lost! All gone! Or just so little left 
As is not worth the care to throw away. 
All lost, all gone! Wrecked, rifted, sunk, 

devoured. 
Wrecked with false lights on Theseus' rocky 

heart. 
O man ! perverse, dry-eyed, untender man ! 
Enchanting man! So sleek, so serpent cold! 
Was it for this, that thou didst swear to me, 
By all the gods in the three worlds at once. 
That thou didst love distractedly, and I, 
With certain tender and ingenuous tears, 
Did presently confess to thee as much ? 



ARIADNE. 



51 



Was it for this, that I, who had a home 
Like an Elysium, in the lap of Crete, 
Did beckon buffets, and for thee did dare 
The rough unknown, and outside of the 

world ? 
Was it for this that thou didst hither bring me 
Unto this isle of thorny loneliness. 
And in the night, without fore argued cause, 
Any aggrievance, any allegation, 
Didst like a coward traitor run from me ? 
Thou man of snow! Thou art assailed by 

this. 
Be sure of it — thou art begrimed as black 
As if thou hadst been hanged, a thousand 

years, 
Under the murky cope of Pluto's den. 
O agony! — but thou shalt know my soul. 
Which gropes for daggers at the thought of 

this! 
Yea, from the day-beams of adoring love. 
Goes headlong to as vast a reprobation. 



52 POEMS. 

Thou, Theseus, wast a cloud, and I a cloud 
Quickened from thee with such pervading 

flame 
As that thou canst not now so part from me 
Without the fiery iterance of my heart. 
Hear, hear me, Jove, who, on the swathed 

tops 
Of ribbed Olympus, and thy steadfast throne, 
Dost sit, the supreme judge of gods and men, 
And bear within thy palm the living bolt, 
High o'er the soiled air of this wan world. 
Look on yon helot wretch, and wheresoe'er. 
Coursing what sea, or cabled in what port, 
The greatness of thine eye may light on him. 
Crush him with thunder! 

Thou too. Great Neptune of the lower 

deeps. 
Heave thy wet head up from the monstrous 

main. 
Advance thy trident high as to the clouds, 
And, with a not-to-be-repeated blow. 



ARIADNE. 



53 



Dash the sin-freighted ship of that rash man! 

And thou, old iron-sceptred Eolus, 
Shatter the bars of thine enclosed winds I 
Unhinge the doors of thy great kennel-house, 
And 'twixt the azure and the roaring'deep 
Cry out thy whole inflated Strongyle— 
Cry ruin on that man! 

But wherefore thus 
Do I invoke the speedy desolation 
Of any mighty magisterial soul 
Whose will is weaponed with the elements ? 
For O! 

Let the great spies of Jove, the sun and moon, 
The stars, and all the expeditious orbs 
That in their motions are retributive, • 
Look blindly on, and seem to take no note 
Of any deep and deadly stab of sin — 
Let Vengeance gorge a gross Cerberean sop, 
Grovel and snore in swinish sluggishness, 
Yea quite forget his dagger and his cup, — 
It is enough for retribution 
5* 



54 POEMS. 

That guilt retain remembrance of itself. 
Guilt is a thing, however bolstered up, 
That the great scale-adjusting Nemesis, 
And Furies, iron-eyed, will not let sleep. 
Sail on unscarred. Thou canst not sail so far, 
But that the Gorgon lash of vipers fanged 
Shall scourge this howler home to thee again. 
Yes, yes, rash man, Jove and myself do know 
That from this wrong shall rouse an Anteros, 
Fierce as an Ate, with a hot right hand, 
That shall afflict thee with the touch of fire. 
Till, scorpion-like, thou turn and sting thyself. 
What dost thou think? — that I shall perish 

here, 
Grmwed by the tooth of hungry savageness? 
Think what thou list, and go what way thou 

wilt. 
I that have truth and heaven on my side. 
Though but a weak and solitary woman. 
Forecast no fear of any violence — 
But thou false hound! thou wouldst not 

dare come back. 



ARIADNE. 



55 



Thou wouldst not dare to feel my eyes again. 
Go get thee on — to Argos get thee on, 
And let thy ransomed Athens run to thee 
With portal arms wide open to her heart — 
To stifling hug thee with triumphant joy. 
Thou canst not wear such bays, thou canst 

not so 
O'erpeer the ancient and bald heads of honor. 
That I would have thee back or follow thee. 
Let nothing but thy shadow follow thee. 
Thy shadow is, to thee, a curse enough, 
For thou hast done a murder on thyself; 
Thou hast put on the Nessus' fiery hide : 
Thou hast stepped in the labyrinths of woe. 
And in thy fingers caught the clue to death. 
What solace have the gods for such as thou 
That is not stabbed by this one thrust 

through me? 
From this black hour, this curse-anointing 

hour. 
The currents of thy heart are all corrupt. 



56 POEMS. 

The motions of thy thoughts are serpentine, 
And thy death-doing and bedabbled soul 
Is maculate with spots of Erebus. 
And yet — aye me ! O that I should say so I 
Thou wast a noble scroll of beauty's pen, 
Where every turn was grandly charactered. 
Hadst thou a heart I — but thou hadst no such 

thing; 
And having none, it was not thee I loved. 
Only my maiden thoughts were perfect 

Theseus. 
O no, no, no, I never did love thee. 
Thou outside shell, and carcase of a man I 
And I — what was it thou didst take me for? 
A paroquet of painted shallowness ? 
A silly thing, to whistle to and fro, 
And peck at plums, and then be whistled off? 
O Theseus, Theseus, thou didst never know 

me! 
In this unworthy clasp of woman's mould — 
This poor outside of pliant prettiness, 



ARIADNE. 57 

There was a heart, and in that heart a love, 
And in that love there was an affluence 
Full as the ocean, infinite as time, 
Deep as the spring that never knew an ebb. 

Too truly feeling what I left for thee, 
And with what joy I left it all for thee, 
And how I would have followed only thee. 
With soul, mind, purpose, to the far world's 

end, 
I can not think on thee as thou deservest, 
But scorn is drowned in a well of tears. 
I will go sit and weep. 



READY FOR THE CHASE. 

Maiden, under arches shady, 

Tarrying where the branches twine, 
Take the hail of beauteous lady, 

Queen, and more than half divine- 
Wonder of the fairest day, 
Summer blooming out of May. 
May we seek, by what miscarry, 
Those your stray companions tarry, 
While the graces of a maid — 
Bright attendants more complete 
Than a train of gilded feet, 



READY FOR THE CHASE. 



59 



Court, or sweeping cavalcade. 
Wait you in the woodland shade ? 
Freedom and the graceful moods 
Native to the fields and woods, 
Grace you with a graceful air, 
To the ripple of a hair. 
In your hat a feather set. 
And your name is Margaret; 
In your hat a feather set, 
Jaunty, hey-day Margaret. 
Margaret, 
Tarrying yet. 
Wherefore now 
Tarriest thou? 
Say you so? — with such a face? 
Are you "ready for the chase?" 
Ready for the chase? — Indeed! — 

Ready to be chased, I guess. 
Tell us: who is to succeed? 

No? — you might as well confess. 
Though your lips attempt disguise, 



60 
) 



POEMS. 



Truth will glitter in your eyes. 
Yes, aye, aye, we know you yet. 
Here's a hat and feather set — 
Jaunty, hey-day Margaret. 



PUTiNAM'S AWAKENING. 



I. 



Sweet morn of April's budding bloom, 
When fields are basking in the light, 

And songs of birds dispel the gloom 
That saddened all the winter's night; 
When from the south, with even wing, 
Return the loving airs of Spring, 
To warm and wake their nestling broods 
Of buds in sylvan solitudes, — 
Sweet April morning, so serene 
That earth seems all a Sabbath scene. 
6 



Q2 POEMS. 

Sweet home, whose works in peace are 
planned ; 
That one dear heart, so full of care, 

Keeps trim and neat with loving hand — 
Keeps neat and cheerful everywhere, 
And lifts its casement to the air; 

And, mindful of the coming noon, 
Piles up the hearth with ruddy light. 

And lays the plate, and knife, and spoon, 
And sets the tankard, blinking bright. 
Home, and a morn, so sweetly blent. 
May breathe a thought of deep content 
In souls whose life is banishment; 
So whistling, free, the hours away, 
Putnam the farmer ploughs to-day. 

But ere the noontide baiting hour, 
When the spent ox may stand at ease. 

While yet his strength the share must scour, 
And close his rounds by slow degrees, 
Comes a swift rider o'er the plain, 



PUTNAM'S AWAKENING. 



63 



Spurring his bounding steed amain. 
Loose from his neck his mantle flies, 
Hot haste rides headlong in his eyes, 
His jangling trappings swing and clank. 
Red drops are on his courser's flank, 
And foam is on the rein. 

"Up! up I To arms! The foe! the foe! 
Blood, Putnam, blood begins to flow! — 
At Lexington, to-day, begins — 
God for our land, whoever wins!" 
Then rings his farewell, far away; 
" England has won and lost a day." 

The farmer hears with dumb surprise. 
Tracing the vision with his eyes, 
Till, o'er the hills, descends afar 
That first swift meteor of war; 
Then, with a thrill, a throb of pain, 
Thought — feeling — passion comes again. 
Fades the gay morning, and he sees 



^4 POEMS. 

Nor fields nor old familiar trees, 
But rapt in vision vast and drear, 
Wild phantoms in their stead appear. 
Ghastly and grand with dim eclipse, 
The zenith, lightning rent, reveals 
A hand that cracks the vial's seals. 
Whose draught must chill a nation's lips ;. 
With thunder claps the vapors blend. 
And drops of tears and blood descend. 
Comes the keen sense of deadly wrong 

That steel alone can now redress — 
Of wrong resolved and studied long, 

With steady purpose to oppress — 
Of wrong whose consequence sublime, 
Is linked with past and coming time — 
Prologue, at least, of this, to be : — 
A deadly strife for liberty. 

And, lol in fields of clouds combines 
The host of war, in solemn lines. 
Of clouds they come, as fowl that fly, 



PUTNAM'S AWAKENING. 



65 



Southward, the gloaming arctic sky; 
Of clouds, as boreal streamers rise, 
Rustling and gleaming through the skies. 

Floats o'er the files of brows severe 
The clear sweet clarion's savage cheer. 
Shrieks the sharp fife: with busy hum, 
Booms in the big belabored drum ; 
Till, front to front, and foe to foe, 
They halt to do the act of woe — 
They halt, with souls whose heavenward eye 
Yearns from the sod where men must die. 
A moment — then right onward driven, 
With tramp and roar, and thunder shock. 
The wrestling legions link and lock ; 
Hell bursts the bars of earth and heaven. 
Hell buries deep, in horrid shade, 
The ruin of the tube and blade. 
Black-throated vengeance, from afar. 
Heaves the hot hissing gorge of war. 
War, War with head exalted high, 
6* 



QQ POEMS. 

Raves through the ranks where thousands die. 
In his red eye's pernicious glare 
Fires of demented reason are — 
Raptures of conquest and despair. 
Through heaps of wrecks, and ashes sere, 
Through gaps where mangled shapes uprear, 
Sweeps his wild steed in fierce career. 
Before him roar the fires of death. 

And souls, with every flash are given. 
Like sparks to mount the airs of heaven. 
Behind, life yields its trampled breath, 
And quits, with curse, and prayer, and groan, 
The haggled flesh and shattered bone, 
And louder yet the thunders roar. 
And wilder horrors hover o'er, 
Till, from the heart of battle, rise 
Infernal airs and symphonies. 
To fiends the fighting phantoms swell. 
Like demons from the dens of hell; 
Then, to and fro, the vapors gray 
Boil, roll, and wrap the scene away. 



PUTNAM'S AWAKENING. 



67 



Behold the man! what could he less? 
The vision, in its fierce excess, 
Transports him like a Pythoness. 
Around, about, and here and there. 
He treads, with high impassioned air; 
Throws down the whip, unyokes the ox. 
And mutters, as the yoke unlocks, 

"The blood! The blood! The fight begun? 

Great God! There's something to be done." 
His hand, foregone in purpose, now, 
Stays not, to house the steer nor plow. 
Nor stays to doff his working gear, 
Nor folds the hearts that hold him dear. 
But, ere the eve's dilated sun. 
Is armed and far — for Lexington. 

II. 

Wealth is for those whom cares consume: 
Yea, all its grandeur and perfume 
May shrine, in unapproached parade, 
A sordid heart, a mind decayed. 



68 



POEMS. 



And Fame will scarce the scrip supply 

Of pilgrims towards eternity — 

Death antedates the best, and gives 

Little or none to him who lives. 

Sage, warrior, poet — whomsoe'er 

Men longest love, or most revere, 

Must leave their fame, with Death, in trust, 

To germ and quicken from the dust. 

Fame is the flower of death in bloom. 

Fame haunts no altar like a tomb. 

Why, then, why chase, so long and far, 

Lights that of closing shadows are. 

Like evening's sole expressive star? 

Wealth — fame — are won in ways of strife 

That waste too fast the oil of life. 

Ill seeks for joy, a restless heart, 

The camp, the court, the crowded mart. 

No joy outmeasures, at the best. 

That of a calm and honest breast. 

And so it is, great hearts may be 

Lapped in a small home lovingly. 



PUTNAM'S AWAKENING. QQ 

Dreaming the careless hours away, 
Contented as a child at play ; 
Nor heed their unregarded years 
Of sober-paced hopes and fears. 

But let there come a strong distress, 
Or cast them loose in loneliness, 
Free as a bark, its moorings gone, 
To strand or walk the world alone ; 
Or let there come a piteous hour 
When Right shall feel the mace of Power — 
When crowns and keys are leagued, again, 
Against the lives and souls of men — 
When prayers and tears of Heaven demand 
A self-relying heart and hand, 
A presence, and a leading eye 
That shall outface all augury — 
Let these, or such, arouse the spirit 
Of hearts that lusty blood inherit. 
And they shall start, as from the earth, ^ 
Quickened with a Titanic birth — 
Shall, like the unbottled Genius, rise 



"70 POEMS. 

Dilating swiftly to the skies ; 
The heaving of their great emotion^ 
In its awakened surge shall be 
Like to the deep resounding sea — 
Like to the swinging of the ocean; 
Then shall they rise to do or dare, 
Strength, grandeur, glory, in their air; 
In camps, in senates tempest stirred, 
Their words, like thunder, shall be heard^ 
And leap to immortality. 



CHARTER OAK. 

Old Oak, so lonely, grim, and stark, 
When will thy years npgathered be? 

Thou seem'st to set thyself a mark 
For Time to break his scythe on thee; 

-And many a stoutly breathed blow 

He yet may give, ere thou art low. 

Long may thy rugged loins uprear 
Thine ancient shoulders to the air; 

Long may the patriot sentry here 

Keep watch and ward with pious care ; 

For Freedom's touch can hallow things 

More than the holy touch of kings. 



72 



POEMS. 



But let go down both tree and tower. 

Rust bark the armor on the wall, 
Let trophies, wrung from royal power. 

With moths and dust be charnelled all- 
Our sons shall fear no foreign yoke. 
With hearts like acorns from this Oak. 



THE SEASONS. 

Winter, a happy age might see, 
At home, among his children three, 
If he could but contented be: 

When skies grow fair. 
He frets and sweats, perpetually. 

For change of air. 

'' I must be gone. Go bring my steed. 
But, children, lest we come to need. 
Spring, Summer, Autumn, be agreed, 

And mind the pelf. 
You'll find the pots and pans of seed 

Upon the shelf." 
7 



74 



POEMS. 

Winter returned, with faithful shoon, 
Some days beyond the harvest moon, 
When winds had got their pipes in tune, 

To have a blow. 
And, in the sombre afternoon, 

A scud of snow. 

To hail him to his homestead towers, 
Lacqueyed by Love, and scarfed with flowers, 
Came Spring, the queen of rosy hours, 

And Summer, up; 
And Autumn from his vintage bowers. 

With ready cup. 

But he was cross as cross could be, 
For, very, very cold, was he — 
Cold as a miser's charity. 

That no man meddles; 
And to the fire put, tremblingly, 

His picks and pedals. 



THE SEASONS. •75 

With Autumn's logs the chimney roared, 
The supper reeked with Summer's hoard. 
And Spring with flowers dressed the board. 

The Carl peered roun' — 
" Ye're likely folks, my three adored" — 

He sate him down. 

Spring sang a song. Her tuneful powers 
Cradled the soul in vernal bowers ; 
Forth stepped the sun his cloudy towers ; 

Skies opened fair ; 
Ye seemed to feel the breath of flowers 

Among your hair. 

And Summer sang a busy tale 
Of fruits and grains in russet mail; 
Reeled the full wain of verdure pale 

In at the door; 
Rang the quick trampling thresher's flail 

Upon the floor. 



76 POEMS. 

And Autumn breathed his thoughtful lore, 

In echoes dying evermore, 

Or swelling o'er a watery shore 

From solitudes ; 
Barked the loud axe, with startled roar, 

In naked woods. 



Well warmed with wine and social glee 
Winter, a merry Carl was he; 
With drops of tears in either ee. 

He told his stories, 
Each one as queer as queer could be. 

And each more glorious. 

He'd been in Jack Frost's capitol — 

Seen, in an icy armor hall, 

Of icicles both great and small, 

In rows like guns ; 
Seen powder snow, and hail for ball^ 

By scores of tons. 



THE SEASONS. "^i^ 

He'd stood upon the Arctic seas ; 

And vowed he saw the old moon squeeze 

Through Sims's hole, by hard degrees, 

And kenned it well; 
But if the moon were stone or cheese 

He could not tell. 

Beneath a sky-bow borealis 

He'd danced on ice the jig of sailors, 

With dew-lapped witches three, as pale as, 

And blue as Death ; 
While wolves sang chorus, hoarse as whalers, 

With all their breath. 

But in the reel he dropped his stick; 

They took it for a villain trick. 

And sky -ward whistled, rocket quick; 

With thunder din 
The ice exploded, in a nick. 

And soused him in. 



78 POEMS. 

In truth he sopped it — got uproarious, 
And bade his daughters sing like Boreas. 
He hugged 'em like a god uxorious, 

And kissed 'em o'er. 
And thumped his pewter mug victorious, 

And called for more. 

His children tried to stint his measure; 
It roused old Winter's quick displeasure: 
" Nal — na! — now — give! I am not azure. 

If ye were I — 
So old and cold, ye'd know the treasure 

Of being dry." 

The morning blazed. No wind did blow; 
And icicles, in many a row, 
Crackled, and skittered o'er the snow. 

In dreary shape 
Lay hearth and board, and Winter snored, 

With jaws agape. 



THE SEASONS. 

Now, Reader, don't put up your hair. 
With this true story try to bear. 
Although it makes old Winter wear 

The mask of Vice : 
Wisdom, and wit, and virtue, are 

Not over nice. 

Though social nights and rousing cheer 
Make old Advice less wise than queer. 
And Prudence says, with eye severe, 

It is not well ; 
Be kind if Age, but once a year, 

O'erdoes himseP. 



79 



LINES WRITTEN IN "PILGRIM'S 
PROGRESS." 

Haunt of my childhood's brief but joyous 
morning, 

Old Book, thou pleasant garden of my heart, 
Unskilled, as yet, to read the mystic warning, 

Which he who planted traced in every part; 
Once more returning to thy glens and bowers, 
I see strange lessons in their fruits and flowers. 

Rich with deep morals is that Pilgrim's story, 

Who journeyed from the humble wicker gate, 
To that celestial gate that beamed with glory. 



LINES AVRITTEN IN "PILGRIMS PROGRESS." gj 

Around whose porch the shining ones did 
wait, 
To welcome him with harps and hailing voices, 
As when a host o'er some new star rejoices. 

And yet not o'er green fields, nor by still waters, 
Walked Pilgrim always on life's varied way ; 
Not always supped with Heaven's serenest 
daughters. 
Nor in the palace Beautiful he lay, 
Sleeping a dreamless sleep, and in the morning- 
Greeting with song the fresh and fragrant 
dawning. 

Through the grim vale of Death and Desolation, 
Fiends at his side, and darkness overhead, 

Through Sleep's Enchanted Land of soft 
temptation 
The onward way of Pilgrim's journey led. 

Doubt, disappointment, sorrow, fear, and danger, 

Came to converse, and made him not a stranger. 



82 



POExMS. 



If, on the page that traces Pilgrim's story, 
Else than the Pilgrim's moral I would see, 

Be this the teaching which this volume hoary 
Speaks in the hour of quiet thought to me : 

Expect not, in this world, the cup of pleasure. 

Without the cup of sorrow in due measure. 

Life is no leisure walk 'mid groves and foun- 

tains — 

Life of the soul, like that in Pilgrim's breast — 

But interspersed with Beulahs and Dark 

Mountains, 

Regions of fear and doubt and bowers of rest. 

Mountains, alike, of light and darkness borrow 

Glory sublime ; and rapture walks with sorrow. 



CRAZY KATE. 

Poor Crazy Kate goes up and down, 
And everywhere about the town, 
Strange rents and patches in her gown, 

And on her head 
Flowers and weeds and rubbish strown, 

Of hood instead. 

Kate's life is public everywhere ; 

Both school and church she makes her care 

In at the teacher she will stare, 

And give him warning; 
And to the parson, during prayer, 

Bid gay good morning. 



g4 POEMS. 

But most, in pastures where, are flowers, 
Picking and talking at all hours, 
Heeding no day of sun or showers 

The skies may don, 
Counting in clouds the golden towers, 

Kate's life wears on. 

The tottling children sent to school 
With dinner-basket, slate and rule — 
She shouts and struts and acts the fool 

To see them scamper; 
On loiterers all, in shadows cool, 

Kate puts a damper. 

Cross farmer John, whose crabbed soul 
Denies her prayer his plate and bowl — 
When he and Sleep snore cheek by jowl, 

And night showers patter, 
Kate stirs his hen-roost with a pole, 

And makes it clatter. 



CRAZY KATE. g^ 

You see her, on town-meeting days, 
Exhorting whom to sink or raise. 
Each friendly freeman she will praise — 

And well she knows him — 
But the fat squire, who checks her ways, 

She snubs and blows him. 

Sometimes possessed to swear and curse, 
Old Nick let loose would scarce act worse, 
But sing some long-remembered verse 

Of by-gone years — 
Kate's fierce distractions all disperse 

In sobs and tears. 

« 

Poor crippled bird, with shattered wing! 
Heart-bud frost-nipped in blossoming I 
Frail necklace with a broken string I 

Lute out of tune! 
No earthly power can backward bring 

Thy life's sweet June. 
8 



86 



POEMS. 

Distraught I distraught I Alas, poor Kate! 
'Twas crossed love left thee desolate; 
And now to hear thee rave and prate, 

In grief or glee, 
It quells the pride of our estate 

Most mournfully. 

Pray Heaven our reason keep us cool, 
And every power and passion school. 
Nor with one fancy play the fool. 

What made mad Lear? 
What, but the long heart crushing rule 

Of one idea? 



ST. VALENTINE. 

How cain'st thou in the calendar 



Thou saint, perverse, gay Valentine ?- 
Since not by penitential scar, 
Nor holy labors, made divine. 
We grieve to say 
Thy votive day 
Strips all thy monkish weeds away ; 
Thou saint of most unsaintly play. 



gg POEMS. 

Strange fruit thou bear'st of cloistered hours, 

For when gray Winter's eye is blear, 
And Spring, expectant, knots the flowers 
That on her bridal shall appear. 
Thou dost indite, 
(Odd eremite,) 
Such raptures as would shame thee quite. 
Didst thou confess whose pen did write. 

Thou walk'st the town and country way ; 

A longer face there could not be; 
None would suspect thee ever gay, 
So close is thine hypocrisy; 
But wine and cheer. 
And wedding gear. 
And lads and lasses, blushing queer. 
Betray thee, trooping in thy rear. 

Thy brethren of the book and bell. 

Who know what charge to them is given, 

And ponder how to quit it well. 

And look, with solemn eye, to Heaven, 



ST. VALENTINE. 



89 



Wc wot they know 

What gaits you go, 
Grave wag in robes of priestly flow, 
Yet wink upon your amorous woe. 

Your s])ort it is to mate the birds 
That follow, ever, with the sun; 
And rippling forth their loving words. 
They feel life's business just begun. 
Full many a wing 
Anon shall bring 
The balmy honeymoon of Spring — 
Clear, sunny, rapturous, carolling. 



S' 



ESTHER'S FEAST. 

In the hall of a monarch a banquet is laid, 
And the cressets are lighted, the couches 

arrayed, 
And the wine quivers, fragrant, in crystal and 

gold, 
As the curtains are lifted, the portals unfold. 



Enters gravely the king, in the strength of his 

pride ; 
Enters Esther, the Jewess, the queen, at his side ; 
Enters Haman, the courtier and guest, and the 

door 
And the curtains return to their places once 

more. 



ESTHER'S FEAST. 



9i 



As the palm of the desert waves lofty and lone, 
Bends the figure of Haman approaching tlie 

throne ; 
But the breath of a siroc is searing his plume, 
For the eye of the Jewess is darkened with 

gloom. 

Lol the king, fierce with passion, strides out 

at the door. 
And Haman, imploring, sinks, pale, on the floor, 
And the beautiful Jewess sits arbitress there. 
For the blood of her race, and a prince in 

despair. 

Can her features, so gentle, their softness forego. 
Nor relent at the prayer of the mighty in woe? 
Shrinks she not from a sight, full of horror as 

this — 
Age and grandeur approaching a fearful abyss ? 



92 roKMs. 

Know ye not, though a tyrant may stand like 

a tower, 
Weaker things than a woman may wither his 

power ? 
While ye marvel how thrifty his branches may 

be, 
God is laying an axe at the root of the tree. 

Tn the palace of Haman is wailing to-day. 
And the pomp of his glory is struck with decay ; 
On his own lofty gibbet he turns in the air. 
And the raven and vulture are rending him 
there. 



MOUNT VERNON. 



Within these shades has Rumor nought to 

do, 
That clamors on the highways of the world, 
Forever babbling of the wondrous new. 
Where'er a courier comes, a sail is furled. 
Here is no wheel of art nor traffic whirled. 
No Titan hands build upward to the skies ; 
'Tis but a quiet scene, in hues impearled. 
Of Nature's everywhere appealing dyes — 
A hallowed haunt, indeed, but not to careless 

eyes. 



94 POEMhi. 



II. 



Repose rules here, the Genius of the place, 
And the old hall, the garden, and the tomb. 
And the gray servant's venerable face, 
And the hoar willow's sorrow drooping 

plume, 
Speak less of years in act, and life in bloom, 
Than of the man whose ashes tenant here. 
Whose counterpart can scarce again relume, 
Till a new empire, like to ours, appear, 
Needing a hand, like his, to, s(^t it in its sphere. 



III. 



These woods, these waters, these Virginian 

skies, 
Were texts for feeling, when his latter day 
Stole on him, and his deeds of high emprise. 
Were, like a book of record, laid away. 
Within this hall^ his fellows, scarred and 



MOUNT VEUNOX. nrr 



Long tried and loved in Wars tempestuous 
ways, 

Sat, ere the lamp had marked the day's decay, 
Their features flickering in the ingle blaze 
Flashing, as if with startled thoughts of other 
days. 

IV. 

Thus a clear, golden summer's day o-oes 

down. 
As quiet as a heart that gently grieves; 
Thus silent comes the season seared brown. 
When Autumn counts her summer-ripened 

sheaves. 
With whispers in the eddies of the leaves: 
So clasps, a weathered ship, the port of rest; 
So, the deep bay, an ocean wave, receives; 
So, to tlie homeward eagle, stands her nest; 
To tlie crnsader, so, the altar of the Blest. 



96 



POEMS. 



V. 



O human nature, child of self-desire! — 
Soul of the clod! — if thou hast ever striven. 
In a bad world, to nurse the noble fire 
That proves thee, still, the handiwork of 

Heaven, 
Look on our Steward; from whose hands 

were given. 
Freely, his keys, still bright for honest ends ; 
No fetter locked, of all those keys had riven, 
No guerdon sought, for all his years amends — 
Only his wife, his home, his garden and his 

friends. 

VI. 

Earth has had other conquerors, whose names 
Bestride, colossal, many a storied land; 
Men of such royal fortune as proclaims 
A noble gift of action and command. 
Which, of the first of these, shall rise and 
stand, * 



MOUNT VERNON. q^ 

To equal, or surpass our Washington? 
Which launched a fairer empire from his 

hand? 
Napoleon, Caesar, Alexander, won 
Most fame on warlike fields— he, most, when 
war was done. 



VII. 

Mark the brisk Corsican, whose fortunes start 
From a low root, but not ignobly grew; 
Wedded to fame, and one imperial heart, 
Earth saw, astonished, how his eagles flew. 
Where Egypt's siroc, and the Alp wind blew; 
Grim to the tips, with blood and glory dyed, 
They swooped up empires, and o'erhovered 
new, 

Nor paused nor faltered in their towering 
pride. 

While that one queenly heart still lingered at 
his side. 

9 



98 POEMS. 

VIII. 

Then, the first Csesar, summon up to air, 
From the dun rearward of the night behind — 
Bald, and with laurel locks instead of hair — 
The Roman of the all achieving mind; 
In war, law, letters, equally refined ; 
Too proud to king it o'er his conquered peers. 
Then, on the Macedonian look, and find 
A soul that lacked no will to rule the 

spheres — 
Queller of kings in his unbearded youth ; whose 

years 

IX. 

Were glorious with debauchery and fight — 
A spangled progress, rather than a reign, 
That, into realms of oriental night. 
Shot like a comet, with its fiery train. 
We shall not see (God grant!) his like again. 
Were such as much, or more than Washing- 
ton? 



MOUNT VERNON. 99 

Aye — if their hearts, unreckoned in, remain. 
Compare him how you will, when all is done. 
Where was his Paris shamed, or Rome, or 
Babylon? 

X. 

O, with another aim, his years review! 
Seek for those leaves that chapter where he 

did 
The noblest thing his heart or hand could do. 
Lift, of his ample soul, the treasure lid. 
Search where, from circumstance, or causes 

hid. 
He most o'erpeered, where few have thought 

to climb — 
Rose as a spirit to a spell forbid. 
And blossomed out into an act sublime — 
Engrossed a deed that took peculiar lease of 

time. 



J^QQ POEMS 

XI. 

And was it when he heard the high acclaim^ 
The hero call, that aye the heart sublimes; 
Prayed and resolved, not knowing but his 

name 
Might pass, with all his struggles turned to 

crimes, 

Like a rebellious blot, to after times? 

Even as the swain, that peaceful fields would 

win. 
When now, the sphere, the sun in August 

climbs. 
Mindful of clouds, yet hopeful to begin, 
Bares his laborious arm, and puts the sickle in. 

XII. 

In that lone winter, cold and dark o'erhead. 
When his grim soldiers, crouching at their 

fire, 
Esteemed God's snow a blanket kindly- 
spread, 



MOUNT VERNON. ^Q^ 

And a poor morsel all their heart's desire, 

Then — there — at Valley Forge — shall we 
require 

The noblest of his conquests, ever known? 

Conquest of doubt, by faith and high desire, 

In a Gethsemane endured alone. 
Through a sustaining prayer to Heaven's eter- 
nal Throne. 

XIII. 

At Monmoath? — when to Faction, waver- 

Touched to the quick, such swelling words 

he spoke, 
With a majestic fury in his eye; 
Then turned and saw how fast the crackling 

smoke, 

And sabre charge, and cannon's sleety stroke, 

Their fearful work of disarray had done — 

Rushed to the front, and dared his heart of 

oak, 

9* 



102 



POEMS. 



And cheered, above the thunder of the gun^ 
"Standi Stand, my men! Once more! Right 
on! The day is won!" 



XIV. 



Or was it when he took the pen that drew 
Young Andre from the heights where Honor 

smiled; 
Long pondered, sighed, resolved, and mourn- 
ed anew 
Those graceful years to such a doom be- 
guiled — 
Signed like a chief, and sorrowed like a child ? 
Or was it, when the olive just restored. 
Sad in a camp unpaid, unreconciled, 
He stood and pleaded, begged, besought, 
implored 
The starving, war-worn soldier's fingers from 
his sword? 



MOUNT VERNON. ^03 

XV. 

Something beyond, and more than these 

express, 
To touch our noblest fibre doth attain; 
And when ye muse on yon vast game of 

chess — 
Those towers and spires that seek the evening 

main, 
Like frost-work stealing o'er a window pane, 
And murmur, half in wonder, half in fear, 
" We know not what we shall be," O, again. 
Think on these shades, be silent and revere — 
Of our Great Father's heart, the proudest quell, 

was here. 



THE YANKEE. 

My name is Brother Jonathan, 
And, if you ask my pedigree, 

I guess that I can show you one, 

That's good enough — at least for me 

My father's father has a Book 

Where you will find it if you look. 



Yet I am of a sturdy stock. 

Still growing green beyond the wave. 
God shield the State, from every shock, 

That, unto me, my fathers gave. 
Old England, here I claim, with thee 
One tongue, one blood, one destiny. 



THE YANKEE. 205 

Fair foes we parted years ago, 

Fast friends we now should ever be, 

And bear, where'er a breeze can blow, 
Keligion, Art, and Liberty. 

This world has scope and verge enough 

For both to show our Saxon stuff. 

Yet, God I thank, I have a heart, 
And for that heart I have a home, 

Respected in each foreign mart. 
Where'er it is my lot to roam. 

My blood beats quick, when I behold 

My o\rn gi'idiron flag unrolled. 

And well it may. When I was young. 
They marked me for a rebel child. 

Whose neck would in a noose be strung. 
And kings looked wise and winked and 
smiled I 

But now, at last, I stand content 

To say I wield a continent. 



106 POEMS. 

I laugh sometimes, sometimes I weep, 
To see the nations light and kill, 

While factions rave, and tyrants keep. 

With sword and gun, their own sweet will, 

Well, if, at last, they can't agree, 

Why, they may come and live with me. 

I hold no secrets from my friends. 

And scarce can keep one from my foes. 

Yet, where my State begins and ends. 

When will they learn? God only knows! 

My common school and church they need, 

Before they ever can succeed. 



Show you to me but these alone. 
And I will show you where may be 

A king who doesn't need a throne. 
Nor armies for his majesty; 

Where you may heed, nor wealth nor birth, 

And honor only native worth. 



THE YANKEE. 



107 



A^'et, for myself, should self-content, 
Or pride or wealth, afflict me so, 

To ape the symbols of descent. 

What I will paint me you shall know: 

A jack-knife and a stick shall be 

The blazon of my heraldry. 

With these I guess and calculate; 

With these I p]an, invent, devise; 
These be the weapons of my fate, 

That make me strong and rich and wise. 
What care I, then, for gilded bands. 
Or tufted shields, or sworded hands. 



I am the Hobin Goodfellow 

Among the sons of human kind. 

Where'er a breeze of trade can blow, 
Me, in some shape, you there will find. 

For, spider-like, my webs, to air, 

I throw — they touch — I travel there. 



108 



POEMS. 



If stalwart England, seeing cause 

To make the Cue-heads her compeers, 

Roar thunder from her lion jaws, 

And split the paixhans round their ears, 

All Chinadom do I supply 

With all the clocks that they will buy. 

If gold is cropped on strands remote, 
You see me first and foremost there; 

I make a ship my pleasure boat, 
And freely give her wings to air, 

To trade, or dig, or legislate, 

And build myself another State. 

If all the world, intent to vie. 

Together fetch the traps of kings, 

Each notion worth a Jewess' eye, 
Prodigious grand expensive things, 

I bring my truck and home-made wares. 

And ask 'em what's the use of theirs. 



THE YANKEE. 

If those barbarians in Japan, 

When Jack my boy is cast ashore, 

Abuse him on his knowledge pan, 
I send my sturdy commodore. 

Completely furnished to environ 

And punch their harbors with cast-iron. 

Of cider nor of pumpkin pies. 

Nor corn with kernels nice as pearls, 

I will not speak on any wise, 

Nor tell you that the Yankee girls 

Are cute and handsome as the most; 

Because I do not love to boast. 

But talk of prairies, woods, or lakes, 
Or mills, or stocks above the par. 

Or sugar-cane, or rattlesnakes. 
Or flour, or pork, and I am there ; 

Or (let the conversation vary) 

I'm something, too, on sculptuary. 
10 



109 



]^]^Q POEMS. 

My faults I do not care to tell, 

Though most of these are plain enough. 
A homely favor suits me well, 

And dress and manners rather rough; 
But, stranger, you will find me kind — 
Until you show another mind. 



I love a trade ; I love the tin. 

Which, like a hawk, I can espy — 

Have sometimes shaved my kith and kin, 
When not so wide-awake as I; 

But are not wealth, love, honor, done. 

By looking well to number one? 



THE MAYFLOWER. 

Down in the bleak December bay, 

The ghostly vessel stands away; 

Her spars and halyards white with ice, 

Under the bleak December skies. 

A hundred souls, in company. 

Have left the vessel pensively — 

Have touched the frosty desert there. 

And touched it with the knees of prayer; 

And now the day begins to dip. 
The night begins to lour 

Over the bay, and over the ship 
Mayflower. 



■^^2 POEMS. 

Neither the desert nor the sea 
Imposes ; and their prayers are free ; 
But sternly else the wild imposes — 
And thorns must grow before the roses. 
And who are these ? — and what distress 
The savage-acred wilderness 
On mother, maid, and child, may bring, 
Beseems them for a fearful thing; 

For now the day begins to dip, 
The night begins to lour 

Over the bay, and over the ship 
Mayflower. 



But Carver leads (in heart and healthy 
A hero of the commonwealth) 
The axes that the camp requires, 
To build the lodge, and heap the fires^ 
And Standish, from his warlike store, 
Arrays his men along the shore — 



THE MAYFLOWER. J 13 



Distribntes weapons resonant, 
And dons his harness militant; 
For now the day begins to dip, 

The night begins to lour 
Over the bay, and over the ship 
Mayflower. 



And Rose, his wife, unlocks a chest — 
She sees a Book in vellum drest; 
She drops a tear and kisses the tome. 
Thinking of England and of home. 
Might they — the Pilgrims, there and then 
Ordained to do the work of men — 
Have seen, in visions of the air. 
While pillowed on the breast of prayer, 
(When now the day began to dip. 

The night began to lour 
Over the bay, and over the ship 
Mayflower,) 
10* 



W/^ POEMS. 

The Canaan of their wilderness, 
A boundless empire of success ; 
And seen the years of future nights 
Jewelled with myriad household lights; 
And seen the honey fill the hive ; 
And seen a thousand ships arrive; 
And heard the wheels of travel go — 
It would have cheered a thought of woe^ 

When now the day began to dip, 
The night began to lour 

Over the bay, and over the ship 
Mayflower. 



TULOOM. 

On the coast of Yucatan, 
As untenanted of man 
As a castle under ban 

By a doom, 
For the deeds of bloody hours, 
Overgrown with tropic bowers, 
Stand the teocallis towers 

Of Tuloom. 



One of these is fair to sight. 
Where it pinnacles a height; 
And the breakers blossom white. 
As they boom 



][]^g POEMS. 

And split beneath the walls, 
And an ocean murmur falls 
Through the melancholy halls 
Of Tuloom. 



On the summit, as you stand, 
All the ocean and the land 
Stretch away on either hand. 

But the plume 
Of the palm is overhead, 
And the grass, beneath your tread, 
Is the monumental bed 

Of Tuloom. 



All the grandeur of the woods, 
And the greatness of the floods. 
And the sky that overbroods. 
Dress a tomb, 



TULOOM. 117 



Where the stucco drops away, 
And the bat avoids the day, 
In the chambers of decay 
In Tuloom. 



They are battlements of death. 
When the breezes hold their breath, 
Down a hundred feet beneath, 

In the flume 
Of the sea, as still as glass, 
You can see the fishes pass 
By the promontory mass 

Of Tuloom. 



Towards the forest is displayed. 
On the terrace, a facade 
With devices overlaid; 
And the bloom 



■]^^Q POEMS. 

Of the vine of sculpture, led 
O'er the soffit overhead, 
Was a fancy of the dead 
Of Tuloom. 



Here are corridors, and there. 
From the terrace, goes a stair; 
And the way is broad and fair 

To the room 
Where the inner altar stands ; 
And the mortar's tempered sands 
Bear the print of human hands. 

In Tuloom. 



O'er the sunny ocean swell. 
The canoas running well. 
Towards the isle of Cozumel 
Cleave the spume; 



TULOOM. 

On they run, and never halt 
Where the shimmer, from the salt, 
Makes a twinkle in the vault 
Of Tnloom. 



When the night is wild and dark, 
And a roar is in the park. 
And the lightning, to its mark. 

Cuts the gloom. 
All the region, on the sight, 
Rushes upward from the night. 
In a thunder-crash of light 

O'er Tuloom. 



O could such a flash recall 
All the flamens to their hall, 
All the idols on the wall. 
In the fume 



119 



120 



POEMS. 

Of the Indian sacrifice — 
All the lifted hands and eyes, 
All the laughters and the cries 
Of Tuloom— 



All the kings in feathered pride, 
All the people, like a tide, 
And the voices of the bride, 

And the groom I — 
But alas! the prickly pear, 
And the owlets of the air. 
And the lizards, make a lair 

Of Tuloom. 



We are tenants on the strand 
Of the same mysterious land. 
Must the shores, that we command, 
Reassume 



TULOOM. 

Their primeval forest luim, 
And the future pilgrim come 
Unto monuments as dumb 
As Tuloom? 



'Tis a secret of the clime. 
And a mystery sublime, 
Too obscure, in coming time. 

To presume; 
But the snake amid the grass 
Hisses at us as we pass. 
And we sigh alas ! alas I 

In Tuloom. 



121 



11 



EXCERPTS 

FROM AN EPLSTLE TO A FRIEND. 

Good Friend, dear heart, companion of my 

youth. 
Whose soul was honor, and whose words were 

truth, 
Methinks I see your smile of quick surprise, 
As o'er these rhymes you glance your curious 

eyes; 
But is it strange, if, in an idle hour, 
I cull these blossoms from the Muses' bower? 
Frail though they be, and blown but for a day, 



EXCERPTS. 223 

The heart's best language they may best con- 
vey. 

In climes more genial, more adorned than om's, 

The poet and the lover talk with flowers; 

Then, though some richer gift were mine to 
send. 

This should be thine, my old familiar friend. 

If for a while it cheat thee of a care, 

With fond remembrance of the thinsfs that 
were, — 

Renew a thought, a hope that once was dear, 

Or hint an adage for a future year, 

I scarce shall think these lines were vainly 
writ. 

Nor quite disown my Muse's random wit. 
Time, that has made us boys, and makes us 
men. 

Will never, never bring the past again. 

But winged Memory half the wish supplies, 

Which he who bears the scythe and glass 
, denies. 



124 



POEMS. 



He, the grim sexton — she, among om' years, 

Like 'Old Mortality' 'mid sepulchres — 

Both lay their fingers where om- lives have 

flown. 
And touch in turn each monumental stone. 
Recall, my friend, the days, when, sent to 

school. 
We framed our first idea of tyrant rule. 
Long ere the world's dark page we pondered 

o'er, 
Glued with the vassal's tears, the martyr's 

gore,— 
Knew that a Caesar passed the Rubicon, 
Or wrongful Britain laid a Stamp act on, 
We drudged, in study, at another's will. 
While the free light fell warm on field and 

hill,— 
Wrought, with the service of an eye askance, 
Beneath a master's rogue-detecting glance, — 
Possessed with fear, lest trick or task might 

draw 



EXCERPTS. 225 

The rod that fell without the forms of law, 
Possessed with wrath, to see our wealth expire, 
Tops, apples, penknives, in the penal fire. 
How oft the slate, whose sable field should 

show 
Platoons of figures ranked in studied row, 
Squadrons of sums arrayed in careful lines, 
Victualled with grocer's bills of fruits and 

wines. 
Betrayed a scene that crowned a day's disgrace, 
Beneath that sternly, sadly smiling face : 
Trees, houses, elephants, and dogs, and men, 
Where half th' Arabian's science should have 

been. 
And only this much learned, of figured lore. 
That time, subtracted, always left a score. 
But when those long loved hours were come, 

that took 
From those revered hands the rod and book, 
Our, like all vassal hearts set quickly free, 
11* 



1 26 P0E3IS. 

Sought, at a bound, the largest liberty. 
Self-exiled, then, to meadow, stream, and wood, 
We dropped, half read, the tale of Robin Hood; 
Though guiltless of his suits of Lincoln green, 
Dear, as to him, was every sylvan scene. 
Shade of old Crusoe, with thy dog and gun. 
And thy lone isle beneath a southern sun — 
Shades of the Lords that made such rare 

disport 
Beneath the oaks of Arden's rural court. 
As, o'er my little day, I cast my view. 
Contrasting what I know, with what I knew, 
Your lot no hardship seems : to you were given 
The world of nature and the lights of heaven, 
What time the sun came flaming from the deep, 
Bursting the curtained clouds of morning sleep, 
Or night, majestic, paced the solemn skies, 
Wrapped in a woof of starry mysteries. 
All times, all seasons, as they came and went. 
Soothed, with sweet thought, the ills of 

banishment. 



EXCERPTS. 



127 



No rude, unbidden guest, invaded there, 
Nor the harsh din of congregated care; 
And hearts, all ruffled 'mid the haunts of men, 
Like to a quiet sea became, again — 
Like to the deep reflection of the skies. 
Their faith-born hopes, and sage moralities. 
This much, at least, my devious Muse would 
say: 
Our golden age, my Friend, has passed away — 
Passed with the careless dress, and elfin looks. 
That showed our books were trees and running 

o 

brooks ; 
But something more, I would, awhile, recall. 
Then let, with lingering hand, the curtain fall. 
Dear to this heart — O now how passing dear. 
With the sad change of each dispatchful 

year! — 
Seems every waif of hours when life was new, 
Though home's small scene contained its little 

view ; 
Home, that, however mean or grand, supplies 



128 



POEMS. 



A gay kaleidoscope to youthful eyes. 

Say not, gray Wisdom, that its wonders pass, 

The more deceit of beads and broken glass; 

Here, to thy rugged front and locks of snow, 

Thy solemn eye, and beard's descending flow, 

I dare avouch, of life's most pleasing way. 

The best is gilded with the morning ray. 

O shut thy book, let go philosophy! 

See all our life the coinage of our eye. 

In Youth the pennies pass — 'tis no less strange 

That Age and Manhood clink the silver change. 

Through all estates our joys, alike, are vain, — 

Then chide not one who turns to youth again : 

One rainbow vision of youth's earnest eyes 

Is worth a stack of staid philosophies. 

Fields, waters, forests, where we roamed of 
yore, 
"What thronging memories haunt ye, evermore I 

In yonder glen the brook is gliding still, 
Whose turf-dammed waters turned the mimic 
mill. 



EXCERPTS. 



129 



Yon wood still woos us to its deep embrace, 
Whose shadows wrought a summer's resting 

place, 
When from our brows, the careless caps were 

thrown, 
The hunter's tackle and the game laid down, 
As the long daylight, wearing towards a close, 
Breathed the soft airs of languor and repose. 
There, stretched at length, we mused with half- 
shut eye. 
To the leaf-kissing wind's light lullaby. 
That, ever and anon, with murmur deep, 
Did through the pine's Eolian organ creep. 
Tired with the varied travel of the day. 
The sound of game, unheeded, passed away — 
The bursting thunder of a partridge wing. 
The frolic blue-jay's nasal carolling, 
The tawny thrush, that peeped, with curious 

look, 
A rustic starer, from his leafy nook, 
The crow, hoarse cawing, as we met his eye, 



\20 POEMS. 

The squirrels bickering on the oaks hard by — 
Red-liveried elves, who taught their brains to 

say: 
' Whene'er the cat doth sleep, the mice may 

play!' 
No more they feared the gun's successless skill, 
Banged with clear malice and intent to kill. 
But shelled their nuts with self-complacent air, 
And chid us, plainly, for invading there. 
Through loopholes of the intertwisted green 
Came the far glimpse of many a sylvan scene — 
Parts of a smiling vale, a glorious sphere. 
Warm with the vigorous manhood of the 

year — 
Deep-bosomed haunts where honest-handed toil 
Renewed the strength that dressed his native 

soil; 
While the gray spire, towards the drooping 

west, 
With heavenward finger showed a world of 

rest. 



EXCERPTS. 121 



Dear Friend, adieu I where'er my home may 
be, 
My door shall swing, with ready hinge, to thee — 
To thee, the friend of every noble art 
That serves to warm, refine, or mould the heart. 
O may thy memory prove a path of flowers, 
Or, dial like, count but the brightest hours. 



A RAILROAD LYRIC. 

" The wonted roar was up amidst tlie woods, 
And filled the air with ])arbarous dissonance." 

Comiis. 

"From those deep-throated engines bek'hed, wliose roar 
Em1)owclled with ontraa'cous noise the air." 

Paradise Lost. 

O'er the cloudy station house 
Of the western mountains cold, 
Where the sun withdraws his gold, 

Stooping his attentive brows, 



A PvATLKOAD LYKIO. il OO 



13; 



^•1 



Stars of signal light are set, 
Trains of waiting vapor met, 

And the day is darkly done. 
In the car of Night reclining, 
Life awaits the morrow's shining: — 

Dreams until the morrow's sun — 
Deeply dreams, and dimly sees 
Troops of traveling fantasies. 

Life is more than half in seeminsr 
And the visions of its sleep 

Are but shadows of the dreamino- 
That its waking moments keep. 

Time, time, time; 
And the night is past the prime. 

But here we stand 
And wait for the wave of the sis'iml hand. 
Water boil and fire burn 
In the oily steaming urn. 
Let the fire and water waste. 
12 



134 



P0EM3. 



They that tarry wind and tide, 

Safely to the harbor ride; 
Ruin cracks the skull of Haste. 

Best though Life may be, in action, 
Action is not all in all. 

Till the track is clear for traction, 
Stand we, though the heavens fall — 

Stand we, still and steady, though 

From the valve the vapor blow, 

From the fire the fuel go. 

Who shall dare to antedate, 

By a step, the step of Fate? 

Fate must traverse, and be shunned 

In the train of things beyond, 

And to wait, may be to do — 

Waiting won a Waterloo. 

Even so! 
Now we go. 
Slip the throttle, lock th' eccentrics; 



A RAIJ.RO.SD LYKTC. 2^5 

Heap the fire with tinder-sticks; 
Try the water. All is well. 
Beat the quick alarum bell. 

Slowly, slowly, 

Wheels rumbling lowly, 
Oft' we struggle, gathering motion 
Like a wave upon the ocean. 
Now our rapid che, che, che. 
Beats a quick tune merrily. 
Nighted traveler, beware; 
Of our engine have a care. 
Smooth and swift, the death behind thee 
Will not spare if it shall find thee. 
Past the shops, whose iron clangor 

Through the daylight hours resounds. 
With a hoarse and roaring anger, 

Speed we from the city's bounds; 
Onward, through the cave of night. 
Boring with our signal light. 
Though the sky is gloaming o'er us, 
We will trust the track before us : 



126 ■ POEMS.. 

We will trust the iron bands 
Laid and kept by other hands. 

So within us, and without us, 
Runs and opens life about us. 
Reason shoots a slender light 
Through an awful world of night. 
Not a star, in all the spheres, 
Shows us of our onward years — 
Shows us of the gullied ditch, 
Fallen rock, nor open switch. 
But, by faith, we trust the bands 
Laid and kept by other hands. 

Faith, alone, in act succeeds — 
Faith in fixed and ordered parts. 
Faith in other hands and hearts — 

Faithful follows, faithful leads. 

Crowd the fire, we'll be belated 
Ere our flight is consummated. 



A EvAILllOAD i.YRIO. 



Tread about and toss the wood in ; 
Urge the water like a flood in ; 
Strain the gleaming flnes and rivets, 
Strain the tugging pins and pivots. 



Life is short, and time uncertain. 
Work or idle, as we may, 

Death will rise and drop the curtain 
On the windows of our day. 
Then our fire will be extinguished, 

And our vaporing nostril cold, 
And our breathless locomotive 

To the engine-house be rolled. 

Now our tread is like the thunder. 
And the earth rolls off from iinder. 
Level and low 
The sparkles fly, 
Behind and by, 
12* 



i:J7 



138 



POEMS. 



Giving the lagging wind the lie. 
To and fro 
The shackle-bars go. 



Hal ye sons of nature, founded — 
Ribbed and shored with fickle bones, 

Know ye how your feats are bounded 
By the limit nature owns? 
All the turmoil ye can keep 
Soon must be allayed in sleep. 

But approach this iron portal, 
Look upon these prisoned fires; 

Here behold a force immortal, 
Here, a strength that never tires — 

Strength that shook its loins gigantic, 
Ages past, before the prime. 

Gored the globe in lusty antic. 
Ere the coming in of time — - 
Shaping, then, our dwelling-place. 
Shaping, now, our myriad race. 



A RAILROAD LYRIO. |39 

Touch the whistle quick and sharp. 
Choke the fierce propelling steam. 

Starting from the shadowy warp, 
In the searching signal gleam, 
See the midnight stalker's back I 

Whirl the bell; 
Life's in danger on the track ; 

All is well! 
Passed he is, and let our eyes, 
Inward turning, moralize. 

Brakes were hugged about the wheels, 
All the cranks a stillness kept. 
Shadows on the polish slept, 

And the demon under seals. 
Quiet lulled the murmuring ire 
Of our iron heart of fire. 
Till we chafed it into toil, 
Gave it blast, and gave it oil. 

Now we nurse a mad delight — 



140 POEMS. 

Dash the iron leagues behind, 
Horse a wrath, and drink a wind, 

Run, outrageous, through the night. 
What shall start before us, now. 
With defiance on its brow? 
Think you, on our thunder track. 
Even a king could frown us back? 

Could he — were our train a State, 
After ages of delay, 

Plunged towards an onward fate 
Leagues of progress in a day? — 
Onward plunged, in all its parts, 
By a million earnest hearts — 
Camp and council, court and press, 
By the steam of strong distress. 
Kings have stood, in such an hour, 
In the full conceit of power ; 
Stood, and faced a coming wrath. 
Till it brushed them from the path ; 
Till their optics might behold 



A FiAlLROAD lARIC 141 

Wreck and redness manifold — 

Fury, and a lust to kill — 
Stars and orders, robes and thrones, 
Reverend, and anointed bones, 

Crunched amid a roaring mill — 
Till they saw, and cried, to see : 

Fatal is necessity. 
Powers there are, in governments, 
Passions, principles, events. 
Break whose checks and counterchecks, 
And you break a thousand necks. 
More the power, the deeper need 
In the eyes that check and lead. 
Powers without forerunning eyes — 
Blind Cyclopean energies — 
Roar along an aimless track. 
Tear the world and go to wrack. 
Powers there are, that, fed and fanned. 
Burst the rein of all command. 



142 . POEMS. 

Past the forest, past the grange. 
Past the misty mountain range, 
Past the ledges gleaming dank, 
Past the hovel, past the tank, 
Past the shaggy gorge profound, 
Echoes, over doubtful ground. 
Kennelled in the far morass. 
Baying at us as we pass. 
O'er the bridge, and through the tunnel, 
Shoots our comet-bearing funnel. 

Past the village, dimly lighted. 
Laid away in curtained rest. 

Onward, howsoe'er benighted, 
Burns our iron-hearted breast. 

Ever thus, O noble heart. 
Thou must do a noble part. 
While the ways are wild and deep, 
While the world is gone to sleep. 
Run thy race and do thine own. 
Even in darkness and alone. 



A KATLUOAl) LYRIC. ;[43 

Hark I what means yon fearful humming, 
Hurtling on the midnight air? 

'Tis — it is a vengeance coming! 
Back! Reverse I Bind hard the brakes there! 
Light! a light! 
Hard and tight ! 
Ruin and death! 
Clang the bell! 
From our iron lungs 
Give the whistle breath, 
With an open throat, 
And a wrath beneath! 
Smite the air 
With a huge despair! 
Vain it is — give o'er endeavor. 
Yonder see the sparkles flashing. 
Quick! Avaunt! Avoid the crashing! 



Clutch your time, or sleep forever. 
Now or never! 



MARY CiUEEN OF SCOTS' FARE- 
WELL TO FRANCE. 

Wooed in the May day of my prime, 

And won, by love, to warmer earth, 
How can I seek, in Scotia's clime, 

Again, alone, a sullen hearth! 
But France is now for other eyes, 
And unto me are other skies. 

O never shall a ship convey 

A sadder wanderer away! 



QUEEN MARYS FAREWELL TO FRANCE. 



145 



Behind, the shore, distinct and bright, 

Extends a farewell arm to me. 
Before me is the drooping light — 

The sunset and the misty sea. 
And thus, in gloom and doubt, decays, 
To me, the light of glorious days, 

When Love to France, with Francis flew. 

Adieu! Adieul Ah me — Adieu! 



13 



A LOOK-OUT, 

FROM THE SUMMIT OF ROARING BROOK ; CHESHIRE, 

CONN. 

Make we this hoary rock our stand, 

While sinks the summer evening glow. 
How vast the skies, above expand, 

And earth, how deeply stooped, below! 
This place, to Heaven, indeed, is near. 

And we would utter, to the air, 

A feeling near akin to prayer, 
And build a tabernacle here. 



A LOOK-OUT. 147 

Behold the tombs of ages gone, 

That all in strong convulsion died — 

Dials of time-enduring stone, 

That, grandly, day and night divide. 

And see the children of the sun. 
Above the valley, sail and soar, 
A thousand acres browning o'er, 

And passing, slowly, one by one. 

And, level off, so high in air, 

Swings the gray hawk in dizzy round ; 
And through the forests, everywhere, 

Creeps up the wind, with lulling sound; 
And, from the gorge of ruined rocks. 

Come, swelling with a fitful call. 

The voices of the waterfall 
That plays among the fallen blocks. 

Above us is the void of heaven. 

Save, by the trooping clouds, untrod; 



148 



POEMS. 



Before us, to our eye, is given 

The teeming valley's chequered sod; 

Beneath, a steep all wild and stark, 
With trees that topple from its face, 
Of thunder storms the battle-place. 

And branded with the lightning's mark. 

But turn, and, on this mountain crest, 

A little glen the rocks inclose. 
Of trees and flowers — the very nest 

Of quiet and retired repose ; 
And through it glides the mountain stream, 

And firs and maples shade it round. 

And airs, of soft Eolian sound. 
Come like the music of a dream. 



O could a wish the heart engage. 
In such an hour and place as this, 

It were, to build a hermitage 

Within this airy bower of bliss — 



A LOOK-OUT. 249 

From the wild world, beneath, to steal, 
And seek with constant longing, here. 
Communion with the purer sphere 

That God, in Nature doth reveal. 

It may not be : the world we tread, 

So grand and gay with rocks and flowers, 
So solemn with its buried dead. 

Cathedral-like, unfolds its towers. 
Where we, in hours of joy or pain. 

Should seek, awhile, with reverent eye, 

Him who upbuilds eternity. 
Then, forth, and to our work again. 



13^ 



TO KATE 



Remembered still, and still the same, 
Where'er your future home may be, 

You can not leave us ; you will claim, 
In us, a part of memory; 

And vainly will the days divide 

Our eyes from Kate, to-day a bride. 

We yield you to the hands that take 
Our bird from out her native nest, 
With hoverings of the heart, that make 



TO KATE 



151 



A gentle tumult in the breast : 
With half a smile, and half a sigh, 
We bid the kind old word, Good-bye. 

No doubt, though under cOlder skies, 
In other happy household bowers, 

New hopes, and other memories 
Will bud and blossom into flowers ; 

For friendships follow, everywhere, 

A girl so gentle and so fair. 

But this we say : Ye Powers of good. 
Whose wings surround our social board, 

Grant that we stand where once we stood, 
And see our truant bride restored. 

And Kate shall find, wherever known, 

No sunnier welcomes than our own. 



SHAKSPEARE. 

What more extolling, from the tongue of 
Fame, 
Can Shakspeare need than his suggested name, 
Who, in a volume so compactly writ. 
Has hived the honey of all human wit. 
Praise suits, where merit in a corner lies. 
But seems uncomely to the acknowledged wise. 
Praise suits, where laboring Art, at times, suc- 
ceeds, 
And the shrewd reader pardons as he reads; 



SHAKSPEARE. 



153, 



But fails, in wonder, where the leaves dispense 
Infinite resource of intelligence — 
Where the great Player, at his game of chess, 
Frolics through all, to glorious success — 
Thrids, with exulting ken a boundless maze ; 
Plays with his kings, and kings it in his plays. 
Swan of the Avon! Genius of the Thames, 
" That so didst take Eliza and [king] James!" — 
Muse of so vast a flight, so ample pinion, 
Whose name is as the name of a dominion! 
Though kings be great, give glory to the pen ; 
A whole-souled Poet is the King of men : 
King and high-priest, one bard, at least, has 

been. 
Lo ! where we lesser Levites pause and quail, 

How grandly goes before, within the veil. 
Our great Melchizedec, without compeers, 
Without progenitor, nor end of years. 



BURNS. 

Though strange success appeared in Nature's 

plan, 
What strange defeats have sometimes marred 

a man! 
Who then shall boast a power or an intent 
Locked from the burglar hand of accident? 
Were ours the art to make the fruit appear 
Of flowers between the pages fragrant here — 
O could we piece these fragments of a soul, 
And the lost parts restore, to make the whole. 



BURNS. " 155 

Here were a Muse, though sprung of lowly 

birth, 
Whose name might face the mightiest of the 

earth, 
But, ah, how brief the lines that now convey 
The grandeur of a glory passed away! 
We pause, like Pilgrims in a lonely place. 
Before some sculptured ruin of old days, 
And see, with strange, and oft renewed surprise. 
The fragments of a royal palace rise ; 
Enough just left to show us what was planned — 
A whole how glorious if the parts so grand — 
But a sad space of desert lies between 
The stones that mark what was or might have 

been. 

P'or some great use, a man was here designed. 
Not of one power, but many powers combined : 
His the best gift that Nature can dispense, 
For homely needs — a homely common sense — 



156 



POEMS. 



A sense of common things, whose voice sincere 

Might well have whispered in an Esop's ear, 

Might well have won the praise of worldly men. 

Whose traffic lore ignores the poet's pen. 

But to this gift — the key of all success 

To common, and uncommon men, no less — 

How shall we add, what else we more revere, 

The heart so deep, so ardent, so sincere ; 

The hand that friendship ever might command, 

All social moods, and manners brave and bland. 

All lively words of sympathy that go 

Into the chambers of our joy and woe; 

The patriot faith in freedom and in truth, 

Faith in the love and confidence of youth. 

Faith in the things beyond the pillared skies, 

Faith in devotion's holy harmonies; 

The wit to shape, from Nature's varied scene, 

All moods of life that might though ne'er have 

been; 
The poet eye for all that makes the day. 
And the wild night, along as wild a way; 



BURNS. 



157 



The impulse, and the passion, and the fire, 
The rapture and the glory of the lyre — 
, These were his gifts, and yet, with these was 

given 
The base infusion of an earthly leaven. 
And, like the Assyrian dream, he passed away, 
A head of gold sustained by feet of clay. 

Could Burns have known his plain unvar- 
nished worth, 

And scorned the petty gauds of titled birth ; 

Could he have dashed, unquaffed, the social 
•bowl, 

Whose dregs were blight and madness to his 
soul ; 

Could he have tamed each passion's wayward 
rage, 

And conned each lesson of his ripening age — 

Found where the work his hands might best 
assay, 

14 



X58 POEMS. 

And looked with sober eye o'er all life's way, 
He might have seen his years with blessings 

crown, 
Nor less the poet's — more the man's renown. 

But though, too soon, his spirit sought the 

sliy, 

Something is left of him that can not die. 
While home-bred joys retain their ancient 

power, 
While mirth and music rule the festive hour, 
The patriot's or the lover's pulses thrill. 
His lyre must lend our lips expression still. 
From him the Caledonian long shall learn 
The martial rage of Bruce at Bannockburn; 
The Pilgrim long shall hail the summer noon, 
By brigs of Ayr, and banks of bonny Doon — 
Shall seek the cot that saw his eyes unclose. 
And the proud fane that guards his last repose. 
Such is the power that human souls possess, 
If greatly moved by rapture or distress ; 



BURNS. 



159 



Lol in an hour they make the humblest home 
The worshipped shrine of ages yet to come. 
To rival this, let Art and Nature strive 
To breathe a charm and bid the landscape live ; 
Earth's fairest scene shall coldly meet the eye, 
Linked with no touch of human sympathy ; 
But hallowed is the soil, where'er we tread. 
If there some heart hath greatly thought or bled. 
Even the first Paradise, however fair, 
Were nought but for the drama acted there. 

Twine a fair garland, Scotia, for the tomb 
Of Burns thy lover; bid the laurel bloom — 
Nor let the laurel's deathless leaf alone 
Wave o'er the name that decks the costly stone ; 
The cypress and the myrtle branch combine 
With graceful tendrils of the joyous vine; 
And each fair flower that blossomed in his verse, 
May speak in emblems from his marble hearse : 
Neglected, lost, adored, beneath this bier. 
Thy noblest bard, thy truest lave, lies here. 



MARCH BIRDS. 



I. 



Thpugh blasts of March are roaring high, 
And clouds run races through the sky, 
And weathercocks are vexed to know 
Which way to point the winds that blow, 
And in the snowdrift, on the hill, 
Grim Winter lurks in ambush still, 
Thou little bird, with faithful wing, 
Hast staked thy life upon a Spring — 
Hast come, so full of faith possessed, 
Winds ruffle but thine outer breast. 
Perched on the garden's tallest pear. 
Because thy last year's nest was there, 
Thy song is of a quiet tune. 
Unto the halcyon days of June. 



MARCH BIRDS. ]^gj 



II. 



My life has many a gusty sigh, 

To blow the clouds of Memory, 

And my poor brain is vexed to know 

What way my feet had ought to go, 

And in a vesture white and chill, 

Sorrow is hid in ambush still; 

But still my heart shall strive to sing, 

And stake its life upon a Spring — 

My heart, with constant faith possessed. 

Shall keep a quiet inner breast. 

In season haunts, though blown and bare. 

Because its last year's love was there, 

My heart shall sing a quiet tune 

Unto the halcyon days of June. 



14^ 



A BALLAD OF NATHAN HALE. 



I. 



The memory of Nathan Hale, 
Who, in the days of strife 

For freedom of om- native land. 
Laid down his noble life. 

Lord Howe, Cornwallis, Percy earl, 
Were come in wide array. 

And from Long Island to New York 
Had pushed our guns away. 



A BALLAD OF NATHAN HALE. 



163 



Our Father looked across the Sound ; 

Disaster groaned behind, 
And many dubious, anxious thoughts 

Were laboring in his mind. 



" Knowlton," said he, " I need a man 
Such as is hard to meet — 

A trusty, brave, and loyal man, 
And skillful in deceit. 



" The British, now in Brooklyn lodged, 

May divers plans pursue. 
Find me a man to go and spy 

What Howe intends to do." 

Said Knowlton : " Sir, I make no doubt. 
Many apt men have we." 

He went. At nightfall he returned. 
With Hale in company. 



164 



POEMS. 



" Young friend," said Washington to Hale, 

" It much imports to know 
What mischief Howe is brooding on — 

Which way intends to go. 

'• But though you might, with help of Grace, 

Unmask his schemes of ill, 
I will not risk your generous blood, 

AVithout your perfect will." 

" Grave sir," said Hale, " J left my home. 

Not for the love of strife, 
But for my Country's cause, resolved. 

Knowing I risked my life. 

"Between my duty and my will, 

In service light or sore. 
It is not now for me to choose, 

For that was done before. 



A BALLAD OF NATHAN HALE. ^^5 

" Let not your Excellency poise 

What may to me ensue, 
But weigh the service to be done, 

And judge my power to do." 

" Well said. Then briefly thus : put on 

Some other self. Disguise; 
And, by to-morrow morning, be 

Among our enemies. 

" Go safely curious how you will. 

And spy, whate'er you may, 
Of how their troops have borne the bruise 

They gave us yesterday. 

" And deeper else — our chief concern, 

And study at this hour. 
Find if their guns are hither aimed, 

Or, with divided power, 



166 



POEMS. 



" Cleft from the rearward of their force, 

While we sit here attent, 
Or farther south, or farther north, 

They mean to make descent. 

"Brooklyn, to them is vantage ground. 

Find what you can — to know 
The mischief in a foeman's thought, 

Is half to foil a foe. 

"The moon goes down" — "By nine," said 
Hale; 

Said Knowlton, " Nay, at ten." 
*' Can you be off so soon as that?" 

"I hardly think, by then; 

"Nor would: for let me plead that I, 

Herein may yield my breath. 
And mine affairs I would devise. 

As if before my death. 



A BALLAD OF NATHAN HALE. 



167 



'' God knows what hearts may crack for this. 

But, failure or no fail, 
To-morrow morning I'll be there. 

As I am Nathan Hale." 

"Bravely, my boy I Such soul as this 

Is better than a host. 
To dare is little, if to dare, 

Unmindful of the cost." 



The night was broadly overcast. 
And the scant moon and stars. 

From the dim dungeons of the clouds, 
Looked through their iron bars. 

" My worthy lad,'* said Washington, 

" We seek without despair, 
Although we find, in all yon arch. 

No sign of morning there." 



253 POEMS. 

" And know Whose gracious hand it is 
That times the darkest sky," 

Said Hale. "Adieu," said Washington. 
" God keep you ! Go — good-bye." 



II. 

The flitting Hours, with golden brands 
Once more adorned with flame, 

Beheld our land in busy act. 
Where war was all the game. 

Out of his cups of deep carouse, 
That reeled till morning shine, 

The Provost of the Lion camp 
Came forth the tented line. 

An ugly man — a tiger soul 

Lodged in a human house. 
With whiskey fuming from his hide, 

And hair about his brows. 



A BALLAD OF NATHAN HALE. ^(59 

And Hale had hid his skiff, and now 

Was coming by the shore, 
Thinking of many serious things 

He never thought before. 

He mused of all the hard essays 

Of this our mortal state, — 
The bitter bruise, and bloody blows, 

Of Virtue matched with Fate. 

He heard the larks and robins sing, 

And tears came in his eyes, 
To think, how man, and man alone, 

Was cast from Paradise. 

"Well, Hodge, how's turnips? What's in 

this?" 

"Now who be you?" said Hale, 

" I aint no Hodge. 'Taint turnips. Stop! 

Let go! This here's for sale." 
15 



170 



POEMS. 



"Powder and grog! Be quiet, lad. 

Tobacco? By my soul! 
Rebel, we've come to take the land — 

Hands off! I seize the whole." 

Towards the camp the Provost strode ; 

Hale followed, with a cry: 
" Give me my pack ! Now! Come! You, 



sir!" 



!» 



" Clod-shoes, get home! Not I! 

But epaulettes were on the road ; 

The trick was getting worse. 
The Provost dumped the pack aside, 

With a substantial curse. 

"Waal, Mister, that's the han'some tiling; 

That are tobaker's prime. 
I knowed you didn't mean to grab, 

I knowed it all the time. 



A BALLAD OP NATHAN HALE. J^^J^ 

" I'm goin' to peddle up to camp. 

And if you only would 
Go snacks, and help me sell, you might, — 

Come, — I should say you could?" 

" Yorky, pick up your pack. Hook on — 
Hook on. We'll make it even." 

The lines were passed ; the countersign 
("Whither away?") was given. 

" I see," said Hale within himself, 

•' This man's internal shape : 
The Devil can do a gracious turn, 

To shun a graceless scrape." 



Gay was the camp, with liveried men 
Some trimmed the gun and blade, 

Some chatted in the morning sun, 
Some slept along the shade; 



172 



POEMS. 



And some bore out the soldier, dead, 

On his nnfollowed bier — 
The soldier, dead, the hapless dead, 

Who died without a tear — 

So lately wept from England's shore, 
And winged, with prayers, afar. 

To feel the piercing thunder shock. 
Gored by the horns of War. 

Cried Hale : " Who buys ! who buys ! who 
buys I 

Hearts! Boys! My lads! Hooraw! 
Thrippence a junk! Britannia rule! 

Don't any of you chaw?" 

But all the while, his wily eye 

Was taking curious notes 
Of men, and arms, and sheeted carts, 

And guns with stoppered throats. 



A BALLAD OF NATHAN HALE. 



173 



''Boys, what you goin' to doln' on? — 

Hello! this way, that beer I — 
You goin' to captivate New York? — 

Pine shillin' piece — look here!" 

" Sing us a song." " 'Bout what ? " said Hale. 

" Sing us ' All in the doons, ' 
'Britannia rule,' ' God save the King.'" 

Said Hale, " Don't know the tunes." 



Cornwallis now came walking by. 

" The capting, hey ? " " It is." 
Hale folded up an ample slice : 

"D'ye spose he'd 'xcept of this?' 



Mad with the thought, to see the clown 

Break his own pate with fun, 

"Do it! " said they. Said Hale, " I will. 

Jerry's respects," — 'twas done. 
15* 



Y^^ POEMS. 

And back he came, with open grin; 
"Took it like ilel" said he, 

"I swow, I done the han'some thing- 
He done it too to me." 



in. 

Sins are like waters in a gap. 

Like flames, to leap a check; 
If cable Conscience crack a strand, 

A man may go to wreck. 

Sins never shut the doors of hearts 

That give good cheer to sin, 
But always leave them open wide, 

For others to come in. 

Disdaining ours for England's camp. 

There lurJved a man about. 
Who, flushed with shame and rage of heart. 

Like Judas had gone out. 



A BALLAD OF NATHAN HALE. 



175 



He left us — and he swore revenge — 
And vengeance did not fail : 

The courteous fiend, who led his steps. 
Conducted him to Hale: 



His kinsman — one whose generous hand, 

Impelled by brave desire, 
Had saved him once, and still endured 

The seal of it in fire. 



He met him coming from the camp. 
He saw — he knew the hand — 

He saw the whole, and, in the road, 
He made a sudden stand. 



"Hum I Ha! It's Captain Hale, I think? 

Nathan, how do you do? 
Sorry, I am, to see you here — 

Sorry I am for you." 



176 



POEMS. 



Off of the sudden heart of Hale 

All his disguises fell: 
"Cousin! Good God! go back with me, 
i And all shall yet be well." 

" It can not be. You came to dare. 

And you must take the rod." 
Said Hale : " This hand, at Judgment Day, 

Will fan the wrath of God." 



" Speak not of God," the traitor said, 
" A good French faith have I. 

' No man hath seen him,' Scripture saith. 
And, 'All is Vanity.'" 

Hale, finding how the scoundrel feared 
Nor God's nor man's award. 

Looked for a handy stick, or stone. 
To quicken his regard. 



A BALLAD OF NATHAN HALE. 



177 



But tiger-soon, the renegade 

Had gripped his arms around: 
" Ah hal Yes I yes !— Help! help! " he cried, 

And crushed him to the ground. 

Fettered, on straw, with soldier guards, 

The tent lamp trembling low. 
The morrow was his day of doom, 

That night a night of woe. 

And, half the night, the gallows sound 

Of hammers filled his ears. 
Like strokes upon a passing bell. 

Telling his numbered years. 

His numbered years — alas, how brief I 
And Memory searched them back, 

Like one who searches, with a light, 
Upon a midnight track. 



1^78 POEMS. 

The fields, the woods, the humming school, 

The idly pondered lore. 
And the fair-fingered girl who shared 

His dinner at the door; 

His room, beneath the homestead eaves. 

Wherein he laid his head — 
His mother, come to take the light, 

And see him warm in bed: 

« 

These and their like, distinct and bright, 
Came back and fired his brain 

With visions, all whose sweetness now. 
Was but exalted pain. 



IV. 

Ere Silence droops her fluttering wing, 

The pang may all be past; 
And oft, of good men's latter hours. 

The easiest is the last. 



A BALLAD OF NATHAN HALE. j^-^Q 

The mom was up — the flickering morn 

Of Smiimer, towards the Fall; 
" Bravely is all," the guardsman said ; 

Said Hale: "God's grace is all." 

And now the Provost Marshal came 

With soldiers, all was ripe ; 
But, out of Hale's tobacco, first, 

He filled and smoked a pipe. 

Forth passed the man, through all disguise, 

With look so sweet and high. 
He showed no sort of dread, at all. 

Of what it was to die. 

Come to the cart, whose doleful planks 

Beneath his feet did creak. 
He bowed, and looked about, and stood 

In attitude to speak. 



180 



POEMS. 



"Holloa! hoal drummer, bring your drum; 

Play Yankee Doodle here — 
Play, while we crack the rebel's neck." 

Earl Percy then drew near. 

"Provost," said he, " I shame at this! 

Let the lad have his say, 
Or you shall find who rules the camp." 

And so he walked away. 



" Soldiers," said Hale, " you see a man 
Whom Death must have and keep ; 

And things there are, if I should think, 
I could not help but weep. 

"But since, in darkness, evermore, 

God's providences hide. 
The bravely good, in every age, 

By faith have bravely died. 



A BALLAD OF NATHAN HALE. \Ql 

"That man who scorns his present case, 

For glorious things to be, 
I hold that in his scorn he shows 

His soul's nobility. 

"Though George the Third completely 
scourge 

Our groaning lives away, 
It can not, shall not, be in vain 

That I stand here to-day. 

"O take the wings of noble thought! 

Run out the shapes of time, 
To where these clouds shall lift, nor leave 

A stain upon the clime. 

" Behold the Crown, of ages gone, 

Sublime and self-possessed; 
In empire of the floods and shores, 

None so completely blest. 
16 



1^2 POEMS. 

" This land shall come to vast estate, 

In freedom vastly grow; 
And I shall have a name to live, 

Who helped to build it so. 



" Ye patriots, true and sorely tried, 
While the dark days assail, 

I seem to see what tears ye shed, 
At thought of Nathan Hale. 



"Where is that man, among ye all 
That come to see me die, 

Who would not glory in his soul, 
If he had done as I? 



"Judge, then, how I have wrecked my life, 

And in what cause begun; 
I sorrow but in one regret, 

That I can lose but one. 



A BALLAD OF NATHAN HALE. 

" In Thee, O Christ, I now repose ; 

Thou art my all to me. 
And unto Thee, Thou triune God — 

O make my Country free!" 

Then, turning to a guard, who wept 

Like sudden April rain, 
And scattered from his generous eyes 

The drops of holy pain, 

" Unto your honest tears, I trust 

These letters, to convey," 
Then, to the Provost Marshall, Hale 

Did mildly turn and say : 

" Before, from underneath my feet. 

The fatal cart is gone, 
I fain would hear the chaplain pray; 

Sir Provost, have you none?" 



183 



184 



POEMS. 



As when a dreadful lion roams 
The torrid sands, and sees 

A fawn among the valleys drink, 
Beneath the tuneful trees, 

If, chance, he sees the tender hind 

Just move behind an oak. 
He snaps his teeth and snaps his tail, 

And makes the desert smoke: 



So, when the Provost witnessed Hale, 

To softer hands, convey 
His parting love, and heard him'ask 

To hear the Chaplain pray. 

He jumped like mad, he danced about, 
Did rant, and roar, and swear; 

The Furies in his furnace eyes, 
And in his rampant hair: 



A BALLAD OF NATHAN HALE. Jg5 

"Dog of a thief I ere yon shall have 

Priest, book, or passing J)ell, 
Your rebel hide shall rot in air. 

Your soul shall roast in hell!" 

»' God's will be done I " said Nathan Hale, 

"Farewell to life and light I" 
They pulled the cloth about his eyes, 

And the slack cord was tight. 



V. 

Once more the rack, along the Sound, 

Curled to the morning sun. 
That kissed with mercy-beams, a world 

Where such strange things are done. 

Along our lines the sentry walked. 

The dew was on his hair, 
He felt the night in every limb. 

But kept his station there, 
16* 



\<^Q POEMS. 

i^nd watched the shimmering spires, and saw 

The swallow^ slide away, 
When o'er the fields, there came a man, 

Rough, and in rough array. 

"Holla, you Yankee scout I" said he, 
They've caught your Captain Hale, 

And choked him, for a traitor spy, 
Dead as a dead door nail. 



"Run I Use yoar rebel soldier legs. 

Tell General Washington. 
Don't wait. You'll be promoted for't. 

I'll stand and hold your gun." 

Out spoke the guard: "You British crow, 
Curse on your croaking head! 

Move ofi', or else, I swear, you'll get 
The cartridge and the lead." 



A BALLAD OF NATHAN HALE. 287 

Full of his news, the sentry soon 

To Knowlton told the same. 
Knowlton, with tears in either eye, 

To the head-quarters came, 



And told to General Washington 

Poor Hale's unhappy case; 
Nought answered he, but bowed awhile. 

With hands upon his face. 



Then, rising steadfast and serene, 
The same great master still — 

Curbing a noble sorrow down, 
With a more noble will. 



"Bring me," said he, "my writing desk, 
And maps last night begun. 

Send hither Putnam, Lee, and Greene; 
For much is to be done." 



2gg POEMS. 

So perished Nathan Hale. God grant 

Us not to die as he ; 
But, for the glorious Stripes and Stars, 

Such iron loyalty. 



SONG. 

Weep no moTe, Lady, weep no more; 

Send weeping after sorrow : 
No sea so wild but owns a shore, 

No night but knows a morrow. 

Weep no more, Lady, weep no more ; 

Tear-drops are unavailing. 
Let Love, that so prevailed before, 

Be now in us prevailing. 

Weep no more, Lady, weep no more; 

Death laughs when Love is grieving. 
Seal up thine anguish and give o'er, 

Nor woo thine own bereaving. 



THE TALISMAN. 

When last I looked in Mary's face, 
My ship was to her canvas heeling; 

We parted with a long embrace, 

And many a tear of truth and feeling. 

And late and long, by sea and shore, 
I since have been a lonely ranger; 

Condemned to wander, evermore. 
About the world, a sailor stranger. 



THE TALISMAN. J^9| 

But oft, o'er foreign zones afloat, 

When winds were whist upon the ocean, 

My heart, with her, has walked remote, 
In silence and a deep emotion. 

When tempest shut the vast of space 
To fire and wreck and wild miscarry, 

Nor hope appeared in any face, 

P*Iy only thoughts were God and Mary. 

And when the shores and frolic marts, 
With lass and glass, have made me tarry. 

My heart has danced with other hearts. 
But never wronged the thought of Mary. 

True is my love, and near or far. 

On every sea, through all the nations, 

Conducts me truly as a star. 

In calms, and perils, and temptations. 



CUPID AND THE WASP. 

Cupid one day unyoked his sparrows, 

And then sat down to mend his arrows. 

First, on the grass beside a brook, 

He from his golden quiver shook 

A sight to see of broken darts, 

The sad result of callous hearts. 

There's many a heart as hard's a whinstone . 

Cupid as well might shoot a grindstone. 

All these his arrow's he inspected. 

Some he retained, and some rejected — 



CUPID AND THE WASP. ^93 

Replaced the splintered and the stunted, 
And tipped the battered and the blunted, 
Till, having trimmed them to a little, 
He shut and put away his whittle; 
When, casting down a random look 
To the wet margin of the brook. 
He saw a wasp, the quiverings 
Of whose steel-colored back and wings, 
Most unmistakably displayed 
Him working at the mason's trade. 
Then, with a gesture courteous, 
Cupid addressed the insect thus : — 

"My interesting friend," said he, 
•' A very grave necessity 
Prompts me politely to address 
News of extreme unpleasantness 
Directly to your private ear: 
You know how very, very dear 
My Psyche is — how I adore her, 
17 



194 



POEMS. 



And set no other Nymph before her. 

I love her very tenderly, 

And she is just as fond of me — 

A creatm'e full of flutterings — 

One of the timidest of things — 

And you must also know that soon 

She will be here, this afternoon, 

To pick a lily for her tresses, 

And interchange a few caresses. 

But, if her eye should find you here, 

The effect of it I truly fear. 

Therefore, the surer to prevent 

Any unpleasant accident — 

While solemnly I do and shall 

Disclaim all grudges personal — 

You must perceive that it is best 

I should respectfully request 

That you would quickly say your prayers ; 

For, to explain it in a breath, 

You must, at once, be put to death." 



CUPID A^^D THE WASP. ^95 

Thus having spoken, unawares, 

He let his truest arrow fly, 

Killing the hapless wasp thereby. 

Scarce had he done the wanton deed, 

And in his quiver stored the reed. 

When Psyche came along the brook. 

Wading, with many a forward look — 

With pallid feet and gathered dress, 

A little cloud of loveliness. 

Down on the bank they sat together, 

Happy as birds in summer weather. 

Psyche was full of languishment, 

But Cupid, not so innocent, 

Devising wily fraudful harm. 

Laid the dead wasp on Psyche's arm. 

She, with a marvellous quickness, took 

The hue of marble in her look. 

Distracted, even to desperation. 

She ran and screamed with consternation. 

At which, her rascal of a lover 

Bolted into a clump of clover. 



296 POEMS. 

Venus, who was not far away, 
Hearing what Psyche had to say, 
Came down and beat the grass about, 
And found the little villain out. 
A sprig of myrtle then she peeled, 
And seized the youngster, rosy-heeled: 
"Come out of this you little god, 
Richly you have deserved the rod! 
You naughty, naughty, naughty pet I 
You have deserved what you will get.'^ 

Cupid protested, begged, besought her 

Not to inflict the switch's torture ; 

By turns he struggled, screamed, and kicked 

her. 
By turns he blessed and cursed her picture, 
Till, seeing the Queen resolved to tutor. 
At last he swore outright he'd shoot her. 
Yet none the less did she apply 
All of the pain penalty. 



CUPID AND THE WASP. 



II. 



197 



Now Cupid sits upon the ground, 

A little statue of despair, 

With swollen eyes, and touseled hair, 

And neither moves nor looks around. 

Still, though his tears have ceased to rain. 

Cloudy with anguish and disdain. 

He sits, and sulks, and sucks his thumbs. 

Nor gives a glance where Psyche comes. 

But O such love beyond a doubt! 

Poor thing! she sadly trips about — 

Calls back again his frightened sparrows^ 

And seeks again his scattered arrows — 

These in his quiver she replaces, 

And to his side the quiver laces. 

And lo, a scene for all beholders! 

She lays her arm about his shoulders, 

And tries to kiss his woes away. 

But Cupid puts her love at bay, 

17* 



;J^gQ POEMS. 

Pushing his hand against her face. 
She, conscious of a new disgrace, 
Spurned from his side, no longer lingers^ 
But goes and weeps between her fingers. 

This scene, the Queen of Loves and Smiles — 

The Queen who every grief beguiles — 

Imperial Venus — as is fit. 

Can not endure, nor v/ill permit. 

"My pets I" she cries, "my children dear! 

Hey I hey I now! now! look here! look here!" 

So, from her bosom snowy fair. 

She takes a dove with tender care. 

White is the dove — as white as milk — 

And all its plumage as of silk. 

Then, with a quick and pliant hand. 

Whose fingers seem to understand, 

She picks a leaf complete and good. 

And makes the dove a little hood. 

This on its gentle head she ties. 

With blades of grass, and blinds its eyes; 



CUPID AND THE WASP. 



199 



Then sets the dove upon the ground. 
The puzzled creature backs around; 
It whisks its head this way and that, 
It struts, it trips, it tumbles flat — 
Claws at the hood, and so doth pass 
In circles, sprawling on the grass, 
And goes such odd inebriate paces 
As put new joy in all their faces; 
Till, with a motion quick as sight. 
Prompted by pity and delight. 
Psyche bounds in, picks up the dove, 
And doth the wildering hood remove. 
Then makes the bird a pretty nest 
Between her fingers and her breast. 
Cupid no longer now contraries. 
But comes and feeds the dove with berries. 



THE COCK OF THE WALK. 

. You strut about, by field and brook, 
And think your gait and plumage show you; 
And yet, for all your lofty look. 
Old Cock, I know you. 

With breast so sleek, and eye so bright, 
As if you were the pink of honor. 

You're stuffed as full of wrath and spite 
As Bishop Bonner. 



THE COCK OF THE WALK. ^01 

Yon stripling bird, your son and heir, 
And trim as you in limb and feather. 
You cuff and tumble, everywhere. 
In every weather. 



To-day, when he had done no harm 
But stretch his throat, and mock your bawling. 
You ruffed your neck as big's my arm. 
And knocked him sprawling — 

Down in a twink, as straight's a rail, 
Astonished into being civil. 

Then up, and off, with head and tail 
Both on a level. 



But though your prowess you may boast. 
And though in dreary dumps so sad he, 
I know not which to pity most, 
The son or daddy. 



202 



POEMS. 



You'll have your day to strut the floor, 
Cock-sure with pluck and voice aspirant; 
But Time will reckon up your score, 
You hen-roost tyrant! 

It is not that the market man 
May tempt me, for your tricks, to sell you ; 
It is not of the dripping pan. 
But this I tell you : 

All times and climes and books record 
The Scripture truth — we can't deny it — 
They that unsheathe the oppressor's sword. 
Shall perish by it. 

Beware the days, when, old and lame. 
You drowse the eye and droop the pinion ; 
Your royal spirit level-tame. 
With time's dominion. 



THE COCK OF THE WALK. 



Think you this bantam, now so green, 
Will then forget these deadly grudges ? 
He'll give your memory, I ween, 



Some savage nudges. 



203 



BREVITIES. 



I. 



Faint-hearted Muse, that, though so young 
and fan*, 
Within this melancholy bower reclining, 
Weep'st through the tendrils of thy dropping 
hair, 
Wherefore so fond an anguish of repining? 
Is it that thou art shaken in thy mood 
By airy whispers of detraction rude ? 



BrvBVITIES. 



205 



Slight are such wounds, and slight should be 

the heed. 
O rather dofF the sable Cyprus weed! 
Come forth, come forth these dank unfruitful 

boughs, 
Wherein some Evil makes his dwelling house; 
Assume the lyre, and brace the nerveless string. 
See how the frolic Hours are on the wing! 
Come forth, like Faith, and look towards the 

skies. 
Serenely fair, with pure, unclouded eyes. 



18 



206 



POEMS. 



II. 



O DO not so interpret prophecy — 

Supposing that this planet of old fame — 
This world — this volume of huge mystery, 
Must soon be locked with clasps of judg- 
ment flame. 
Imagine not God's dealings with the spheres 
Pinfolded by a score of human years. 
Something apparent, of unfinished fates, 
Betrays a future. These United States 
Are, of themselves, a great prophetic book, 
Wherein the angels might desire to look. 
Here Freedom, with late-learned alchemy, 
Fuses and slas^s the nations, and makes free: 
And still, with eager eyes, behold her stand, 
Flushed, with some newer secret just at hand. 



BREVITIES. 



207 



III. 



Once in a dream, I saw the fabled clime 

Beyond the kingdoms of Avernian night; 
I saw the sages of the ancient time 

In russet mantles iinder-girt with white. 
Their souls, unsheathed of dull mortality, 
Were keen to pierce through all philosophy. 
Their thoughts were blows that clove the husks 

of things. 
Their pointed words were arrows driven with 

wings. 
Long time I lingered listening, and did keep 
As by a river, rapid, clear, and deep. 
In such society, from morn till even, 
I did not doubt but that I was in Heaven. 
Yet at the last I pined, desiring less 
The food of gods, than human friendliness. 



2Qg POEMS. 



IV. 

Fain would I bear command, and, in my mind, 

Know that I sit in some uplifted sphere, — 
Know that I hold a height above mankind, 
And truly say : None else is master here. 
Fain would I take the van of busy men. 
And live a life that none could live again. 
Time should not mar my deeds, nor render less 
Those high immortal features that express 
To every eye, without the aid of skill, 
Great logic, engined with as great a will. 
Compared with this, how weak it were, and 

poor. 
Merely to live beloved and obscure! 
What were ten thousand loves, without the 

dower 
Of majesty, of majesty and power. 



B'iEVITIES. 209 

V. 

I WOULD not often look on crowds again, 

Nor through a war of dust and glitter run. 
Nor book my name in any strife of men, 

In towered marts that spread beneath the 

sun. 
And blench his gold with his retorted beams. 
They have their dreams, but here are better 

dreams. 
Give me my life to live obscurely here. 
Thousands may know, where one may hold us 

dear. 
They have their spires, but here are nobler 

w^oods. 
And sweeter music fills the solitudes 
Of bee, and bird, and brook — and here are 

flowers — 
Elms and the sward are dials of my hours. 
Then let me so on God, in Nature, look, 
As the great Soul of a most glorious Book. 
18* 



210 POERIS. 



VI. 



I SAID : The roses of my youth have faded. 

I have outlasted friendship, love and faith. 
Vile men! Vain world! Vast nothingness 

paraded! 
Shake hands and quit! now come and take 

me, Death! 
Straightway a mighty horror in the air 
Shook me amid the rags of my despair. 
I felt a presence and a fearful sense, 
As one who breathes the air of pestilence; 
And heard a voice, as of an angel, say: 
"Whither away, mortal? whither away? 
Death's ministration is not always death; 
Nor come I now to throttle thee of breath. 
Be warned — maintain thy love and faith un- 

vcxed. 
Or thou hast missed both this world and the 

next." 



BREVITIES. 211 



VII. 

Stand here aside, and mark yon publican — 

A very Matthew sitting at receipt — 
A jolly franklin, and a gentleman, 

Chaired in the midst, where many cm'rents 

meet. 
Janus of travel, here he shows, in state, 
Towards every point, a face and open gate. 
Deaf to the bustle as it sinks and swells — 
Prompt at the call of many clocks and bells. 
His lordly eye makes sumptuous days and 

nights. 
And darts gyration down his satellites: 
"Baggage to eighty — Tea at six — I say I — 
Peter fire up! — Set I — Turn that dog away — 
No cars in yet? ^no telegraph? My eye! — 
Hi! how d'ye do! — What! are you off? Good 

bye!" 



2 1 O POEMS. 



VIII. 

Robert of Gloster, in an old romance, 

Makes mention of a rich but captious king, 
Whose daughter grew so fair of countenance 

That many gallant knights came worship- 
ping. 
All men desired her — both the fool and wise 
Warmed in the splendor of her lustrous eyes. 
But the rich captious king withheld, the while, 
His child for him whose wit should make him 

smile ; 
But all who tried, and failed to make him 

merry. 
Beheaded were in manner sanguinary. 
So runs the poet's doom: if he succeed, 

To a pure fame we marry hin\ forever; 
But if we take no unction of his reed. 

We cut his head off for his vain endeavor. 



SOCRATES TO HtS FRIENDS. 

Look not on me, my gentle friends, 

As though you thought that I must die. 
Believe, when mortal being ends, 

The spirit's immortality. 
Or, if you doubt, despond, and fear, 

And dread, in Death, a dismal sleep. 
Deem not the soul encumbered here. 

Whose silence you, perhaps, may weep. 
This body, wrought with curious skill, 



214 



POE.MS. 



It is the temple of the mind— 
The friend and servant of a will 

As subtle as the sightless wind. 
My body is not Socrates ; 

It is as dull and lifeless now, 
As when its throbbing pulse shall cease, 

And death-damps gather on its brow. 
This, I to Athens now resign. 

By her unjustly stern decree; 
But, though she seizes what is mine. 

She has no might to injure me. 

Though Tyranny, in robes of power. 

And pomp of cruel state, be found. 
Soon comes the guilt-avenging hour, 

And hurls him headlong, to the ground. 
But Goodness, in her sackcloth vest. 

Knows that the soon-retrieving years 
Shall see her wounded cause redressed. 

On earth, or in the starry spheres. 



SOCRATES TO HIS FRIENDS. glo 

And whether death be endless rest, 

Or be, of life, the second birth, 
The soul can meet the stern behest, 

Secure in her untarnished worth. 
If,* in good thoughts and deeds of love, 

Her swiftly turning years go by, 
What evil power can rise above, 

And crush her lofty destiny? 
None — none — she calmly sees the wave 

Of Lethe o'er her being roll. 
Or finds herself, beyond the grave, 

A living and immortal soul. 
My toil has been, through all my years, 

To know, and then to do the right ; 
And Death brings now no restless fears, 

No more than welcome sleep at night. 
Why should I fear, if Nature's plan 

I have each day, with thought, pursued, 
Lest death, which she ordains to man, 

Should bring me anything but good? 
Nay, nay, my friends, these tears give o'er. 



2\Q POEMS. 

Our days of doubt are quickly run, 
And then Elysium's halcyon shore 

Marries the friendships here begun. 
There, too, those men whose souls sublime 

Once walked, as we, in mortal mould-^ 
The great and good of ancient time, 

We shall, in living forms, behold. 
O then, in those celestial bowers, 

How deep the daily joy, to trace 
Their virtues and their lofty powers. 

In each revered majestic face. 

Nay, thou who bear'st the fatal cup, 

Turn not thy faithful eyes away; 
As freely do I lift it up 

As on a merry festal day. 
Serve thou, through blessing and through ban, 

Thy friends, thy conscience, and the 
State, — 
Then wilt thou be indeed a man. 

Not good and true, alone, but great. 



A DOMESTIC LYRIC. 

How d'ye do and good morning! 

You see my adorning: 
Cm-1 papers, and kerchief, and boddice ajar; 

But what is the sinning 

To prink for a spinning? 
Tul lul la lul lirra, tul lul la la la. 



And pray never mind me, 

So busy you find me. 
And how are the children, and how is mamma? 

And when have you seen us. 

And what is between us? 
Tul lul la lul lirra, tul Inl la la la. 
19 



218 POEMS. 

And what are you doing? 

I heard you were stewing, 
And packing your quinces away in the jar. 

And that's your old bonnet. 

With new ribbons on it. 
Tul lul la lul lirra, tul lul la la la. 

My present miscarried, 

When Rosalie married ; 
Her sudden departure was quite an ah ha! 

And certain late candles 

Of yours Rumor handles. 
Tul lul la lul lirra, tul lul la la la. 

A whisper is humming 
Of somebody coming 

To town, a young fellow — a limb of the bar- 
Rich, handsome and merry, 
You'd better be wary. 

Tul lul la lul lirra, tul lul la la la. 



A DOMESTIC LYRIC. 



219 



And, news that is better, 

I'll show you a letter 
From my uncle, the Captain, returning afar, 

In the ship Indiana, 

From Spanish Havana. 
Tul lul la lul lirra, tul lul la la la. 

The hammock I made him, 

So cosily swayed him. 
That now he is coming, the clever old tar. 

At the watering places, 

To show me the faces, 
Tul lul la lul lirra, tul lul la la la. 

And O such occasions 

Of gay ostentations! — 
Rides, revels, and moonlight, and drinking the 
spa — 

Such a reel of quick pleasures. 

In glittering measures! 
Tul lul la lul lirra, tul lul la la la. 



220 



POEMS. 



He vows that my dressing 

Shall be the distressing 
Of beauties and wealthies, and look for a star. 

When a lassie inherits 

Gay purses and spirits. 
Tul lul la lul lirra, tul lul la la la. 

Have you seen such a skewer 

As my music Monsieur? 
A snipe of a fellow at harp and guitar; 

And, what's to consider, 

In love with a widow. 
Tul lul la lul lirra, tul lul la la la. 

When he frets me with fretting, 

I give him a sweating; 
He vows and protests he will tell my papa — 

Turns as red as a cinder, 

Looks out at the window. 
Tul lul la lul lirra, tul lul la la la. 



A DOMESTIC LYRIC. 

Hist! — isn't it shocking? 

Somebody is knocking. 
Just do me a favor — unfasten the bar. 

Me mercy! who is it? 

So early a visit! 
Tul lul la lul lirra tul lul la la la. 

My dress it is dusty, 

My apron is rusty, 
My hair is in papers — I wish he was far. 

I'll run and deposit 

Myself in a closet. 
Tul lul la lul lirra, tul lul la la la. 



221 



19* 



THE VIOLET. 

Lilies and roses of the earth, 

That are uplifted gracefully, 
Rejoice in your luxurious worth. 

But you are nothing now to me; 
For in my bosom, I have set 
Only a little violet. 

Love, from the regions of the air. 
Searching an object for his aim, 

Discovered me reclining fair. 

And through the skies an arrow came; 

Through the fair violet, and me, 

Came the swift arrow, suddenly. 



TUE VIOLET. 



22S 



I felt my spirits faint and fail — 

I felt the wound that checks the breath: 

My features wore the red and pale, 
But not the livery of death. 

My troubled eyes a vision met, 

liovelier than any violet. 

O flower, in whom I see, alone, 

The bloom of each expressive grace, 

The beauty of an airy zone, 

And glory of a matchless face — 

O maiden, like a morn of May, 

You wooed and won my heart away! 

Your soul is as a tender vine 

That hangs its clusters on the boughs. 
You lead, unto a royal shrine. 

The homage of a thousand vows. 
Love, in a raiment shining new. 
Steps from a throne to flatter you. 



224 POEMS. 

Your voice is music heard afar 



When all the night the moon enshrouds; 
Your eyes are like the morning star, 

Beneath the arches of the clouds; 
Your stature, and your graceful guise, 
Are as a palm of Paradise. 

Dear is the fond, confiding air 

With which you tell your heart to me; 
And you are blithe as you are fair — 

Blithe as the summer to the tree. 
In you is mirrored and defined 
The nature of my perfect mind. 

Unto the eyelids of my youth 

You hold a deep enchanted glass. 

Wherein the forms of Love and Truth 
Do most majestically pass. 

Their hands, from urns of silver bright, 

Dispense the flowers of my delight. 



WHAT IS THE USE? 

I SAW a man, by some accounted wise, 

For some things said and done before their eyes, 

Quite overcast, and in a restless muse, 

Pacing a path about. 

And often giving out: 
"What is the use?" 

Then I, with true respect: What meanest thou 
By those strange words, and that unsettled 

brow? 
Health, wealth, the fair esteem of ample views. 
To these things thou art born. 
But he as one forlorn: 
"What is the use? 



226 Po^s. 

" I have surveyed the sages and their books, 
Man, and the natural world of woods and 

brooks. 
Seeking that perfect good that I would choose ; 
But find no perfect good. 
Settled and understood. 
What is the use ? 



" Life, in a poise, hangs trembling on the beam, 
Even in a breath bounding to each extreme 
Of joy and sorrow; therefore I refuse 

All beaten ways of bliss, 

And only answer this: 
What is the use ? 

" The hoodwinked world is seeking happiness. 
'Which way?' they cry, 'here?' 'no!' 'there?' 

'who can guess?' 
And so they grope, and grope, and grope, and 

cruise 



WHAT IS THE USE? 



227 



On, on, till life is lost, 
At blindmaii's with a ghost. 
What is the use ? 



" Love first, with most, then wealth, distinction, 

Fame, 
Quicken the blood and spirit on the game. 
Some try them all, and all alike accuse — 
' I have been all,' said one, 
'And find that all is none.' 
What is the use ? 

^' In woman's love we sweetly are undone ; 
Willing to attract, but harder to be won, 
Harder to keep, is she whose love we choose. 

Loves are like flowers that grow 

In soils on fire below. 
What is the use? 



228 



POEMS. 



<' Some pray for wealth, and seem to pray 

aright; 
They heap until themselves are out of sight; 
Yet stand, in charities, not over shoes, 
And ask of their old age, 
As an old ledger page. 
What is the use? 

" Some covet honors, and they have their choice. 
Are dogged with dinners and the popular voice; 
They ride a wind — it drops them — and they 
bruise ; 
Or, if sustained, they sigh : 
' That other is more hisrh. 
What is the use?' 



" Some try for fame — the merest chance of 

things 
That mortal hope can wreak towards the wings 
Of soaring Time — they win, perhaps, or lose — 



WHAT IS THE USE? 



229 



Who knows? Not he, who, dead, 
Laurels a marble head. 
What is the use? 

" The strife for fame and the high praise of 

power, 
Is as a man, who, panting up a tower, 
Bears a great stone, then, straining all his thews, 
Heaves it, and sees it make 
A splashing in a lake. 
What is the use? 



" Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth 

raise 
To scorn delights, and live laborious days. 
Thus the great lords of spiritual fame amuse 
Their souls, and think it good 
To eat of angels' food. 
What is the use? 
20 



230 



POEMS. 



" They eat their fill, and they are filled with 

wind. 
They do the noble works of noble mind. 
Repute, and often bread, the world refuse. 
They go unto their place. 
The greatest of the race. 
What is the use? 

" Should some new star, in the fair evening sky 
Kindle a blaze, startling so keen an eye 
Of flamings eminent, athwart the dews, 

Our thoughts would say: No doubt 

That star will soon burn out. 
What is the use? 

'' Who'll care for me, when I am dead and gone ? 
Not many now, and surely, soon, not one; 
And should I sing like an immortal Muse, 

Men, if they read the line. 

Read for their good, not mine; 
What is the use? 



WHAT IS THE USE ? 



231 



" And song, if passable, is doomed to pass — 
Common, though sweet as the new-scythed 

grass. 
Of human deeds and thoughts Time bears no 
news. 
That, flying, he can lack, 
Else they would break his back. 
What is the use? 



"Spirit of Beauty! Breath of golden lyres! 
Perpetual tremble of immortal wires! 
Divinely torturing rapture of the P/Tusel 

Conspicuous wretchedness! 

Thou starry, sole success!- — 
What is the use! 



"Doth not all struggle tell, upon its brow, 

That he who makes it is not easy now. 

But hopes to be? Vain hope that dost abuse! 



232 



POEMS. 



Coquetting with thine eyes, 
And fooling him who sighs. 
What is the use? 



" Go pry the lintels of the pyramids ; 
Lift the old king's mysterious coffin lids — 
This dust was theirs whose names these stones 
confuse. 
These mighty monuments 
Of mighty discontents. 
What is the use? 



"Did not he sum it all, whose Gate of Pearls 
Blazed royal Ophir, Tyre, and Syrian girls — 
The great, wise, famous monarch of the Jews? 

Though rolled in grandeur vast, 

He said of all, at last : 
What is the use ? 



WHAT IS THE USE? 



233 



" O ! but to take, of life, the natural good, 
Even as a hermit caverned in a wood, 
More sweetly fills my sober-suited views, 

Than sweating to attain 

Any luxurious pain. 
What is the use? 

" Give me a hermit's life, without his beads — 
His lantern-jawed, and moral-mouthing creeds ; 
Systems and creeds the natural heart abuse. 

What need of any Book, 

Or spiritual crook ? 
What is the use? 

" I love, and God is love; and I behold 
Man, Nature, God, one triple chain of gold — 
Nature in all sole Oracle and Muse. 
What should I seek, at all. 
More than is natural? 
What is the use ? " 
20* 



234 POEMS. 



Seeing this man so heathenly inclined — 
So wilted in the mood of a good mind, 
I felt a kind of heat of earnest thought; 

And studying in reply, 

Answered him, eye to eye : 

Thou dost amaze me that thou dost mistake 
The wandering rivers for the fountain lake. 
What is the end of living? — happiness? — 

An end that none attain. 

Argues a purpose vain. 

Plainly, this world is not a scope for bliss, 
But duty. Yet we see not all that is. 
Or may be, some day, if we love the light. 
What man is, in desires. 
Whispers where man aspires. 



WHAT IS THE USE? 



235 



But what and where are we? — what now — to- 
day? 
Souls on a globe that spins our lives away — 
A multitudinous world, where Heaven and 
Hell, 
Strangely in battle met. 
Their gonfalons have set. 

Dust though we are, and shall return to dust. 
Yet being born to battles, fight we must; 
Under which ensign is our only choice. 

We know to wage our best, 

God only knows the rest. 

Then since we see about us sin and dole. 
And some things good, why not, with hand 

and soul. 
Wrestle and succor out of wrong and sorrow — 

Grasping the swords of strife. 

Making the most of life? 



286 



POEMS. 



Yea, all that we can wield is worth the end. 
If sought as God's and man's most loyal 

friend. 
Naked we come into the world, and take 

Weapons of various skill — 

Let us not use them ill. 



As for the creeds, Nature is dark at best; 
And darker still is the deep human breast. 
Therefore consider well of creeds and Books, 

Lest thou mayst somewhat fail 

Of things beyond the veil. 



Nature was dark to the dim starry age 
Of wistful Job ; and that Athenian sage, 
Pensive in piteous thought of Faith's dis- 
tress ; 
For still she cried, with tears: 
"More light, ye crystal spheres!" 



WHAT IS THE USE? 237 

But rouse thee, man! Shake off this hideous 

death I 
Be man! Stand up! Draw in a mighty breath ! 
This world has quite enough emasculate hands, 

Dallying with doubt and sin. 

Come — here is work — begin! 

Come, here is work — and a rank field — begin. 

Put thou thine edge to the great weeds of sin ; 

So shalt thou find the use of life, and see 
Thy Lord, at set of sun. 
Approach and say: " Well done!" 

This at the last : They clutch the sapless fruit, 
Ashes and dust of the Dead Sea, who suit 
Their course of life to compass happiness ; 

But be it understood 

That, to be greatly good. 
All is the use. 



A MILLENNIAL PSALM. 

So clear and beautiful, upon the mountains. 
Advance the feet of pilgrim ones, who bring 

Palms, and the words of peace. 

That angels never cease 
Presenting joy for them, around th' immortal 
fountains. 



"Peace," they proclaim, "and love are all our 

teaching. 
Attend, O world, the tidings that we bear; 



A MILLENNIAL PSALM. 



239 



And such a halcyon morrow 
Shall gild this orb of sorrow, 
As^ never yet did fill the thought of prayer's 



beseeching. 



"Not long shall earth's dominions groan in 

sleep, 
Harried by Hell with half of Hell's affliction. 
See, as we sway our eyes, 
A new creation rise, 
And the mysterious Dove go moving on the 
deep. 

"Ye weary ones who sit in dust and ashes. 
To whom the day is as the night demure. 

Stand up and see, afar, 

The spangled morning star; 
To ye who mourn we say: uplift your tearful 
lashes. 



240 



POEMS. 



" We come to conquer, not begirt with thunder, 
But armed with spells more searching than the 
sword. 
Before our voices still, 
And life-adorning will, 
Sink the red flag and gun, the bastion drops 
asunder. 

^' The keepers all, for fear, like dead dissembling. 
See a great light, in dungeons deep, expand ; 

And Hope, with glittering eyes, 

Winged in celestial guise. 
Leading the captives forth, with joyful fear 
and trembling. 



"For He Who never was not — Who forever 
Doth sit, obscured in light, enthroned on high, 

To us, to us hath given. 

Far as the scope of Heaven, 
To charm the world to peace, and every fetter 
sever." 



A MILLENNIAL PSALM. 241 

So speak the Comforters, and lo! while speak- 



inof. 



Up comes the sun, and right against his disk 
They stand, in act commanding. 
Like him Saint John saw standing 

In the great som'ce of day, his locks with 
glories reeking. 



Blazing they stand amid the meteor morning. 
The day, intense, uplifts a glorious eye; 

And the night-feathered steam 

Drops dead before the gleam. 
Shot through with arrowy light of that majes- 
tic dawning. 



It is the Sun of Righteousness that shineth; 
His light is come, and now, through all the 
nations, 

21 



242 



POEMS. 



Swords shall afflict the sod, 
And men shall hallow God, 
Each under his own vine, until that Sun decli- 
neth. 



Now comes the perfect fruit of seeds that lay 
In the great Will, when, marshalled forth from 
Heaven, 
Beatitudes with wings, 
And loud harmonious strings, 
Beheld Him lift His hand, and speak the void 
away. 

For now, to make our perfect peace diurnal, 
Whirls a swift angel down the reeking gloonu 

And pens the horned crew; 

And with a signet true. 
Seals up the Janus doors redounding woe eter- 
nal. 



A MILLENNIAL PSALM. 243 

No grisly fiend shall lurk for our betraying — 
No warder watch the misty morning rise — 

No plague infect the springs — 

Nor War exalt her wings, 
Her whetted harpy claws and horrid teeth 
displaying. 



But Love and Joy, by angel hands attired, 
And scarfed with rainbows, through the stars 
descending, 

Shall gently slide again 

Into the gates of men. 
In vision all complete, as prophet eyes desired. 



A thousand years the sap shall push the vine — 
A thousand years behold the palm expanding — 

A thousand burnished years 

Saluting in the spheres 
The gonfalon of God — the cross of Constantine. 



244 



POEMS. 



But, in the gloaming of that golden morrow, 
Wings of Hell-web must fl-it a little space^ 

And war, and woe's distress, 

And briny bitterness, 
Restore earth's long lost years of universal 
sorrow. 

And when that twilight darkens out of heaven. 
Then shall the stars fall hissing to the sea ; 
And Time, his dying grasp, 
From his worn scythe unclasp, 
And from his ruined glass the sand shall all be 
driven. 



The sun and moon shall roll in blood profound. 
For mortal throes their wonted courses staying. 

While the archangel blast, 

The deepest and the last. 
Shatters the crystal cope with throbs of thun- 
drous sound. 



A MILLENNIAL PSALM. 245 

Thenlol afar, those glowing vales and foun- 
tains, 
To which the Great Good Shepherd waves his 
flock; 
How the new-modelled sphere 
Rings to those voices clear — 
The infinite chant of Beautiful upon the moun- 
tains. 



2V 



APPENDIX. 



ENIGMATIC POEMS 



THE BARBAROUS FATE OF DE 
COURCY. 



I. 



Behold my first and you shall see 

A thing of fiery life — 
Wing of the war and victory, 

And whirlwind of the strife. 
The joy that shouts ha I ha I to fear — 
The madness of the fierce career — 
This, in excess, is perfect here. 
Behold my first and you shall find 

A wild and fearful thing; 



250 ENIGMATIC POEMS. 

A startled leaf it leaves behind 



Like death upon the wing. 
Nor thus alone doth it possess 
Courage sublime and Tearfulness, 
But wrath unmoved, and gentleness. 



My first, a passive thing, did wait 

De Courcy's coming long, 
Till he should pass his castle gate. 

Girt with a warlike throng — 
It waited lonely in the yard. 
While, far within his castle barred, 
De Courcy held and smote it hard. 

Between my first and last is set 
The first thing in the alphabet. 



My last — it is of strength a tower. 
Its works astonish Time; 



. THE BARBAROUS FATE OF DE COUROY. 9^1 

By that may weakness mount to power, 

And genius soar sublime; 
Before it, breathed with purpose great, 
With soul and mind and will elate, 
Fate yields — it is itself a Fate. 



Ah! deep and deadly was the wrong 

De Courcy's bosom bore; 
Rapine and Hate had dogged him long. 

And snuffed him to the door. 
And could he drive the brutes to bay. 
And through and through them punch the 

day? 
Breathing my last he rode away. 



My whole, combined, was once a thing 

Strong only in defence; 
There was the swallow's callow wing. 

And maiden innocence. 



252 ENIGMATIC POEMS. 

There walked the warder, long ago, 
When weakness made of stren§:th a foe, 
Now it is useless — be it so. 



De Courcy to my whole came back, 
But now how gashed and grim I 

Life and estate had gone to wrack ; 
There was no hope for him. 

My first had foundered, as the ships. 

And pierced him deadly through the hips; 

My last had died upon his lips. 



THE STRASBURG SPIRE. 



II. 



In Strasburg, in the ages dark, 
(Those world -enigmas,) once an arch- 
itect began a work of mark — 

A spire intended to defy 
The weather to eternity; 
My first was then, as now, just by, 

And saw the corner bedded well, 
By priest, procession, fume, and bell, 
Yet wept at such a spectacle ; 
22 



254 ENIGMATIC POEMS. 

Beholding, in that founded spire, 
Ambition's butterfly desire 
To mount above his fellow, higher. 

But that the architect forgot. 
My weeping first he heeded not, 
Nor heeded weather, cold or hot. 

And yearly, monthly, daily grew 
His crescive ruin up to view; 
My first came daily searching through. 

And up it still did crystallize, 
Serenely, sweetly to the skies — 
A joy enriching to the eyes — 

Up, up, still up, an airy wonder I 
Big bells, baptized, boomed fainter under, 
The organ's, and the city's thunder. 

My first still mocked, with smile and sigh. 
The man's inspired constancy, 
And said : " We differ — you and I." . 

The shards were cleared, the scaffolds cast, 
And, of that pile complete and vast. 
The last thing finished was my last. 



THE STRASBURG SPIRE. 



255 



My first the work did not contain, 
My last was there, and whole, and plain — 
But was the labor all in vain ? 

Alas! and ah! O misery! 
All human works are vanity — 
Vain to aspire it is, we see. 

And so the builder found it. Soon 
Came forth my first, with trampling shoon, 
In the wild nonage of the moon. 

Scorched was my last, and whole ; and rent, 
The spire, from vane to battlement. 
The builder into madness went. 

Chained in a howling den of stone. 
His glorious labor overthrown. 
He sat unknowing and unknown. 



FRIAR BACON ANTICIPATED. 



III. 



Where'er my first takes residence 
In human haunts, it gives offence, 
And, o'er the whole world's peopled shores^ 
'Tis everywhere turned out of doors. 

My last you witness, now and then, 
'Mid men with wine and supper mellow. 
Hugged as a fellow-citizen. 
Though, elsewhere, simply known as — fellow. 



rWAR BACON ANTICIPATED. 257 

My whole has saved to many a neighbor 
A deal of sore domestic labor; 
Described in rhyme, 'twould be abstruse ; 
But listen how it came in use : 

Of adepts in the arts forsaken, 
A famous one was Friar Bacon — 
One of a class of men whose brains 
Had labor only for their pains — 
Who all their souls and substance sold, 
In hope of changing lead to gold; 
But, by a contrary assay. 
Projected gold the leaden way — 
Whose writings, blind with signs and sigmas, 
Were profitless as these enigmas. 

Bacon at Oxford, Paris, Rome, 
Furnished his head, — ^then, turning home, 
At Ilchester did institute 
The study then in most repute. 
With one to aid — a servant wight, 
A lad who by my last was hight — 
22* 



258 



ENIGMATIC POEMS. 



He gave himself up, heart and hands, 
To crucibles and stewing pans. 

While blowing his alchymic bubble, 
Sadly came in, one day, the poor 
Wife of a neighboring Vavasour,* 
With the disjointed words of trouble : 
"My hair is crisped, my cheeks are toasted; 
Alack! the loin was sadly roasted! 
The travellers, waxing out of patience. 
Have cursed, and gone without their rations,. 
And I, amid my ruined dinner, 
Have sat and cried — a wretched sinner!" 

Bacon, who joined, to good discerning, 
The stuff, without the starch of learning, 
Gave the poor woman's grief connivance, 
And truly promised some contrivance 
To save her labor and her beauty. 
And forthwith set about the duty — 
But, in his own most learned way. 
By trines, and signs, and algebra. 

* Landlord. 



FRIAR BACON ANTICIPATED. 



259 



Meantime, my last, who, in the chimney's 
Corner was stirring up Smectymnus, 
With a true shank of heron's bone, 
Studied, and made the thing his own — 
Put it together soon, and there 
Produced within his chimney station, 
My whole in actual operation. 
Before the Friar was well aware. 

Astonished at the lad's invention, 
Bacon, at once, was all attention, 
xA.nd watched the curious jim-crack spin. 
With thoughtful thumb beneath his chin, 
Then, smiling, laid his horn-book down : 

"Learn this, my son: Howe'er we plod, 
And call our labored thoughts our own, 
Inventions are the gifts of God. 
A pious mind as clearly sees 
God in man's work as in the bee's; 
Else why should truth so oft ensconce 
From wise, that plain folks see at once? 



2QQ ENIGMATIC POEMS. 

This have I known : A man of science, 
Furnished with every rare appliance, 
Begins, in the first flush of youth, 
To question some material truth. 
Truth, engined long, confesses not, 
Though plied with fires Plutonian hot; 
Truth in a flask, an open bowl, 
Or nestled in a gimlet hole, 
Lurks at his elbow, still unsought 
With the right 'sesame' of thought, 
Till, worn with years, the sacred rage 
For truth he leaves a future age — 
The long endeavoring eremite 
Of science, dies without the sight — 
When, lol in some domestic scene. 
Or on some homely village green, 
Where one would think it strange if e'er 
Aught than the surface should appear, 
Truth, in a vesture rich and new. 
Starts like a vision into view, 
Unveiling, with a quick surprise, 
To childhood's inconclusive eyes." 



FRIAR BACON ANTICIPATED. 261 

An answer grave and fall of learning; 
But had the Friar himself found out 
The thing he moralized about, 
He would have called it his, no doubt — 
His by superior discerning. 



THE METAMORPHOSIS. 

IV. 

Caliph Haroun Alraschid — he 
Of strangely storied memory, 
Took empire just within the date 
Of the harsh rind of man's estate, 
And whispered ia the ready ear 
Of his place-anxious old Vizier: 
" Go, seek, as far as Samarcand, 
The fairest maiden in the land." 

Back came the Vizier — not too soon- 
Not till the second change of moon — 
And brought, well trained to his device, 
His daughter to the Caliph's eyes. 



THE METAMORPHOSIS. 



263 



Twice looking, bending twice his head, 
"What is your name," the Caliph said. 

" Grave Sir, two names have I," said she, 
" My first name is a quality. 
Which, like a mantle, wraps the wise 
From folly's laughter-dripping eyes; 
It drapes the state of you and him" — 
" Yes," said her sire, " her name is " — 

"Dim- 
Eyed Vizier, hush I " — the Caliph frowned. 
The maiden with a look profound : 
" My second name, sir, is a flower — 
The sign of the confiding hour; 
Sweet from the harsh, its blooms attain, 
Like a sweet virtue born of pain; 
And yet no dearer flower — none — 
Flaunts its fair odors to the sun." 

The Caliph bowed, and truly pleased 
With wit so modest, made a feast ; 
And liking, in a proper place. 
To crimp with glee his courtly face. 



234 ENIGMATIC POEMS. 

Essayed to show the maiden's worth 
By means of dances, songs and mirth, 
But unto all she made reply : 
" O no sir ! " very quietly ; 
And seemed to relish a caress 
Less than to dread a rumpled dress. 

A Sheikh, who owed her sire a grudge, 
Now gave them both acruel nudge; 
For watching how the weather blew, 
(Key-holes are roomy for the wing 
Of secrets — he had smoked the thing,) 
And, devil-bent to have his due, 
He sought a private hour and threw 
On the cool Caliph's love cold water: 

"She is your stiff old Vizier's daughter I'' 
Curt are the Sultans of the sun. 
Their passions seldom much outpour — 
Haroun made motion to Mesrour,* 

"Look to it Mesrour; see it done!" 

* The Sultan's executioner. 



THE METAMOMPIIOSIS. 265' 

The Vizier to a dmigeoii went; 
His child was to another sent — 
Ah hapless child I a dungeon where 
The black magician Gongonair, 
By whispers in a circle spoke, 
And cursed works with drugs and smoke, 
Had wrought that whosoever lay 
A night therein, was brute next day. 

Forth, from his bath of morning water. 
Came Haroun : " Show the old man his 
daughter." 

Up came the Vizier, racked with moans; 
Tears, from the thunder of his groans, 
Made a broad shower along the stones. 
But when the locks ungrappled were. 
Instead of hog, or ounce, or bear. 
Only a strange new flower was there. 

" Mesrour!" cried Haroun angrily, 
And stabbed him with his sudden eye, 
*' Mesrour, produce the maid, or die I" 
23 



2QQ ENIGMATIC POEMS. 

"Prophet of God!" the old Vizier 
Exclaimed, " my daughter all is here. 
God touches her for my intent, 
But God knows she was innocent! 
And witness how I prove it so: 

" The base, in their afflictions grow 
Abject, their baseness is increased. 
Till sin transmutes them to the beast. 
But they who in good thoughts abound — 
Where the right stuff of heart is found — 
Have grace, that, even in hell, would be 
Unsoiled by devilish alchemy; 
Changed though they be, by wreck and wear 
Of Time, that juggles everywhere. 
They still are something pure and fair." 



ALEXANDER'S VISION. 



V. 



When the divinely fated son 
Of the madman of Macedon 
Had quelled the world, from Hellespont 
To Lybia, and the fabled font 
Of Ganges, and had overthrown 
More kingdoms than before were known, 
He, with the reins between his hands 
Of many curbed and bitted lands. 



2gg ENIGMATIC POEMS. 

Returned to Babylon, and there 
Died of debauch and royal fare. 
That heroes are not gods, we tax 
No other proofs than their own acts. 

While, just between the shears of fate^ 
^Maintaining free his sensual state, 
He lay within a palace fair, 
A seat of old voluptuous kings 
Bowered by the gardens hung in air — 
A palace built in equal wings. 
The which, from near Euphrates' side, 
A moat did curiously divide. 
On either bank of which canal 
The palace towers were mutual. 
The moat was fifty cubits wide, 
And the same space above its tide, 
A pass between the towers was made 
Of trellis wicker, bravely stayed — 
Quite overgrown with tropic flowers, 
Where, in the breezy evening hours, 



ALEXANDER'S VISION. 269 

Sometimes, from that superior height, 
The king would make it his delight 
To watch the vastly populous space. 
Sinking into the night's embrace — 
Parks, temples, turrets, gardens, spires — 
Perspectives vast as his desires,] 
Glowing, and through the haze, afar. 
The umbrageous girdle of Shinar, 
Infolding, to his conquering eyes, 
An empire in a Paradise. 

Crowned, in a hall of splendid state. 
One night the king at supper sate. 
Till frolic Bacchus, ruder grown. 
Thrust him, asleep, beneath the throne; 
There at unrest, in hard position, 
Sadly he saw a dreary vision : 

He dreamed that in a lonely boat 
He rocked upon the palace moat, 
Blackness was on the earth and skies, 
23* 



270 ENIGMATIC POEMS. 

When from the waters did arise 

A ball of sight-afflicting fire, 

That flowed with flame, and spinning higher^ 

Touched, kindling at the wicker bridge. 

Then flashed to either palace ridge. 

Malignant flames, with forky heads. 

Frolicked like devils on the leads. 

Till, in a quick consuming space. 

The palace had not left a trace. 

Save dust and smoke about the boat; 

Out of the which, above the moat, 

Rose to the monarch's troubled eye, 

A demon forty cubits high — 

His eyes were cavernous lighted holes; 

His hair was flame; his teeth were coals. 

Then with a gesture grand and wide, 

" Three days, three hours," the demon cried> 
" Those old Assyrian towers shall bear 
That wicker pass aloft in air. 
If, after three and three, those towers 
Uphold that wicker pass of flowers, 



ALEXANDERS VISION. ^^^ 

Come flame and wreck — the whole is mine ; 



Which to avert, O prince divine I 
Be thou of me completely skilled: 
Tear down the wicker and rebuild — 
Build ivith the symbol of command^ 
And that ivhereon the mountains stand.^^ 

Moved by his dream, th' ensuing day, 
The monarch cut the pass away ; 
And sent for one Stasicrates, 
Famous, in such mechanic crises, 
For ready engines and devices, 
To build as might the demon please — 

^''Build with the symbol of command^ 
And that whereon the mountains standP 



Stasicrates the riddle sought, 
Piling his will on his intent 
In utter agony of thought, 
But found not what the demon meant 



272 ENIGMATIC POEMS. 

A brave device, that coin, nor stone, 
Nor old historic scroll has shown 
Was found before the later day 
Of Rome's predominating sway; 
Whose whole, and parcels twain, did bless 
Rome with all power and pleasantness ; 
Whose first — the symbol of comynand — 
Makes Rome an awe in every land ; 
Whose last — ivhereon the mountains stand- 
Should Rome, and all her temples fall. 
Would mark her site of burial ; 
Whose whole, with ages, drops aside 
From all the works of Roman pride. 



SOLUTIONS 

To THE Enigmatic Poe3is 

I. — Barb-a-CAN. 
11. — Weather-vane. 
III. — Smoke-jack. 
IV. — Prim-rose. 
V. — Key-stone. 




JtM 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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